Metamorphosis at Dawn
by BC
Summary: Sidestory to Pantogogue. Harry’s POV. What really happened on Halloween? Where was Harry for the subsequent weeks and what changed him so markedly?
1. Equivalent Exchange

Disclaimers:  
JK Rowling owns Harry Potter and all that goes with him. Also, I am _not_ JK Rowling.  
Jan Werich was a Czech actor, humourist and philosopher. The ideas in Foreword are his – I only put them together to create food for thought.  
I also have to mention Jean Genet, whose _Pompes Funèbres_ inspired parts of chapters Sons of Sun, Son of Nefertum and Effervescence.

Warnings: male-male sexual situations, chan, character death, suicidal tendencies, purple patches, spoilers for books up to OotP + Pantogogue + And yet…

A/N: As I stated in the summary, this is a side-story to _Pantogogue_, the prequel to _And yet…_. It is Harry's take on the happenings since 1st of November until 7th of December. Metamorphosis at Dawn has nine chapters plus the Foreword and is already completed.

x

Metamorphosis at Dawn 

x

Foreword: 

x

Nobody can undo anything. You can't wake the dead, you can't take back the lost years, and sleepless nights of fear you can't turn into sweet slumber of carefreedom.

Our memory is short. Life is short; time as such does not exist. What is the point then? The point is our life – happiness, beauty, freedom, love… The human memory is also a labyrinth. And lots of things get lost in there.

In a labyrinth the man sees reality from all sides.

Man does not need to be a Christian; it's enough to be but a man – so that, in the memory of the helpless and poor infant somewhere in the shed – so that he would contemplate. So that he would contemplate that the little human was born on the flight from brutal power, on the flight from stupidity – the sister of power, and so that all the beautiful and humane things, thoughts, knowledge, freedom must be hidden from the power, that they are born on the flight, but they won't stop being born – because they are born of love.

The point remains that every man must have his own prayer, his own _pater noster_ – whether he invokes substance, work, or God. But he must be anchored to something, feel it as his purpose and goal.

Pulsapientia of Mr Jan Werich

x

Equivalent Exchange 

x

The rain is falling heavily on the land. It turns the road into mud crossed with strands of miry water; the ground moves when stepped on and I lose balance and end up falling into the dirt. The linen shirt I have on, once white, becomes covered with brown splotches; the rare lighter spots indicate where the cloth has been too wet to absorb any other liquid.

I kneel and turn my filthy face up towards the rain, letting it wash away the mud. It leaves but a few veins of brown water, which I ignore, as they would just recreate themselves seconds after having been smeared.

It is a good day, good day for nature as it rights itself. Just like the mud on my face, the stains are washed away, and come morning the site will be wild, untouched green, proclaiming (less than truthfully) innocence of human infestation. This is a good place. As good as many and better than most…

My hair is sticking to my face and unnecessarily blurring my vision yet worse. I try to put the sloppy streams away, more or less successfully. I could get up and walk further, but why bother? I am out of sight from both Hogwarts and Hogsmeade, the mud road I've slipped on leads to an abandoned cave, and while here I am not shielded from the rain (I don't mind the rain all that much, really), at least it's a nice place to die. And I don't have to get up.

I look around, absently noting my distinct lack of interest, but I figure I, of all people, should have an idea about what kind of place is going to become the site of death of the Boy Who Lived – oh gods, that pseudonym makes for some _very_ awkward puns. It's alright, I think. A forest starts not far away, less than twenty yards. The steady downpour blurs dark green hills. Boulders, light grey on a sunny day have been coloured dark grey by the water and green by moss. I would love it, if not for the mud road. A perfect place for a memorial (because they _will_ build one. I know).

But I have long since stopped seeking perfection, and this place will most definitely do. I pull out my wand and Summon a random piece of wood. I could use the wand itself, but I have too much respect for a companion who has kept me for more than five years. I know I am not easy to deal with. Merlin and every wizard and witch in Britain know, too. Perhaps I am too bitter. Perhaps Snape is right to pity me – or whatever other ailment overcame him. Maybe he lost a bet…

I muse about Snape and his eerie, suspicious kindness toward me as I draw a circle in the mud. It's not an easy shape to draw, a circle. But this one _wants_ to be drawn, and it takes truly minimal effort to manage it. Its diameter approximates to my height – five feet four inches, at the most. I select a point on the perimeter. This direction I want to face as I die. Not much to see there – shades of grey, falling water, mud.

I think that is a much better last sight than what I could hope to have in battle against Terrordemort. Stupid nickname, I know, I just relish the imagination of his face after he would be addressed as such. Might be worth the try… but not from me. No, I don't get to see it. Hopefully, no one else will either. Anyway, this is a way to end it all without the senseless deaths and facing off my arch-nemesis and whatever very romantic crap. It's much safer, too. And much better view. I prefer mud to blood.

And there is another ton of puns that would leave Pansy Parkinson in stitches (if she wasn't dead) coming from Draco's mouth (if he wasn't kind of converted), but which I don't feel like exploiting. I estimate the position of the other four apexes and draw the lines that connect them. The channels fill with rainwater and I throw the wood away. Not going to need it again.

I put the bundle of my robes on the ground, careful not to disturb the drawn pattern, and undo the knot. There, in front of me, are splayed its meagre contents.

Six candles and six candlesticks (I _did_ hesitate about the pattern quite long), a knife, Hedwig's feather – oh, Hedwig… I wish you were here, I wish you could disapprove of me in whatever painful way might strike your fancy, one last time… yet, were it not for your sacrifice, I would not be here, and you would not await being avenged… Anyway, the pseudo-bag also holds an aquamarine, a potion I spent the night brewing, and a mirror. It's actually a rather simplified version of the ritual that I am going to perform, but nothing indicates it should be less powerful.

I drip the vile concoction (it doesn't even have a right name, an obscure thing thought up by a crazy, evil, but not powerful enough wizard) into the ducts. It dissolves in the rainwater and slowly, almost imperceptibly, the star and the circle turn white. While this happens, I plant the candlesticks into the mud at each of the apexes; they are elegant things – spirals of some kind of black metal. Each one is crowned with a candle now, charmed to anchor a sphere impenetrable to water.

I pull off my boots and stash them on the side of the road. They are followed by my trousers, underwear and, eventually, the mud-stained shirt. I leave the robe and my glasses there on the pile and walk back into the circle, pretending that I am _not_ naked. It's a stupid requirement, I think, especially when thousand other things are not specified at all – doing this in the middle of nowhere while it is raining was my choice. I set the mirror next to one of the candles – the one I'll be facing. It would have worked with water surface, except that it couldn't have been disturbed by the rain. I could have charmed it, too, but this way it is simply more efficient. I just need a tool used for scrying – not that I would see anything in it, but it has to do with reaching old Tom via spiritual plane and what not. It's like my scar, just on the outside.

"Right…" I mumble to myself, kneeling in the centre of the star and waving my wand in lazy loops. Five little happy yellow flames spring to life. "Let's correct a mistake from fifteen years ago…" I cast my wand out of the circle and hold the stone in both hands.

"Sal' youm yuchop, revesam malov…" I grimace at my accent – even to me, born and raised English, it sounds maladroit. As though my tongue was the wrong shape… I chant on nevertheless, undeterred, knowing full well that the incantation is merely the carrier of intent, and I have enough intent to eventually work with no incantation at all.

The aquamarine heats up to the point when it's scalding my hands, but sacrifices have to be made and I was never foolish enough to believe that simple death would be all that it takes. Something slices, once, each of the tips of my fingers, and something else draws on my chest. I keep my eyes on the mirror at all times. It is a compact darkness, even with the drops falling on it, trickling down the black nothing. The stone bursts into flame and disappears in a puff of something soft, and I lose my balance. All my power is drained from me; I hang onto life with just will… my eyes never leave the empty mirror even as my head hits the ground, painting my hair and cheek and three quarters of the rest of my body murky brown.

This is the end… of Tom Riddle.

His taking me with him is a mere detail – one that will sell newspapers and later on books. Tomorrow, people will celebrate. There might even be falling stars in Kent. And nine months later, a whole new generation of tiny wizards and witches… Gods, so worth dying for.

I hear voices now… distant, yelling, but I don't understand through the beating rainfall. It could be my father and Sirius, calling for me… I would have hoped for mum, but there is an unmistakable masculine quality…

Suddenly it feels like my left leg was ripped off and I scream. The blackness in the mirror fades into dull grey of the sky, spattered with drops of equally grey water. I draw my limbs close to my body – yes, even the left leg, which still seems to be attached – and jerk and scream again as the same feeling shoots through my left arm.

"Harry! Can you hear me?!" That voice is so not my father or Sirius, not even Snape, which was the only person I would have thought able to stop me if he got it into his rock-hard skull. It's someone familiar, but I don't care… it was too soon! Voldemort is still _alive_, still there to terrorise people, and I'm all but dead… there won't be another chance. They ripped it all away from me, stole my destiny, robbed me of my single chance on absolution, and I shall die now the death of a sinner – which I am, of course, but I had hoped to make up for at least a part of it.

"Gods!"

"War, can you break-"

The inquiry is cut off as more than one pair of hands rolls me over on my back, and I see a blurred face leaning over me. They've got blue, blue eyes and very dark red hair, coloured probably by the rainwater, plastered all over their wet face. The hair is long and drips. The skin is pale with cold, lips colourless, bluish.

"Harry, can you hear me?" he repeats, not as loudly as before. I can, but I don't see a reason to respond, even if I had any energy left. I have been dead inside for a while, it might as well end now, before the depression of my failure hits me truly.

"Take him to the safe-house. We'll figure the rest there…" half-suggests, half-orders another voice. I see the blurred face over me nod just before my eyelids fall shut.

"Find his wand…"

Darkness.

x

"Come on, Harry, wake up…"

I comply, although not quite willingly. Opening my eyes is a struggle on its own; I can't do anything more. Breathing takes all my energy…

The place I am in is comfortably warm. I seem to be lying in a bed, wrapped in not so soft sheets, but I have had far, far worse, so I don't complain. Not that I could if I wanted to. The ceiling is wooden, or at least I guess it to be, since I don't have my glasses. Another thing I can't help.

"That's good," the same voice says encouragingly. I don't think I recognise it, and I'm currently unable to look at the speaker. "Do you think you could eat?" he – I'm guessing it is a he – asks. My lack of answer has to be enough for him.

"Right. Didn't think so." There is a lot of rustling and a sound like the bursting of a particularly big and fat soap bubble. "Stay as relaxed as you can – this might be uncomfortable, but shouldn't hurt…" It sounds too ominous to my liking. If at least I knew at whose mercy I am, it might not be as difficult but… my body spasms… my eyes close…

"No! Don't go to sleep!"

Darkness.

x

I jolt to full awareness the moment the door slams. I can hear wind in the distance, somewhere outside, locked out. There is a presence at my side, fingers tracing my hand, but I still can't move. Can't even look… though breathing comes easier than before.

"Why is he still unconscious?" I discern a hint of panic. This man is one that I know, though, only to recall where from… everything seems hazy… I don't even remember how I got here.

"He came around for a while. Not strong enough yet." The voice is oddly melodious, thrumming, as if several people spoke at once. Definitely not human. "He won't die…" And definitely worried. Worried about me… Means they're not likely to hand me over to… to… oh, yes, Voldemort. That would be bad… and now to remember why…

"Not his body. But his mind-"

"His mind will adapt. He's flexible enough. That's not what worries me." The non-human almost-song washes over me, not unlike a healing spell. I crave more, even as the fingertips, which I estimate belong to the same non-human, trail past my wrist onto my forearm.

"Then…"

"I'm worried about his soul, War." Who calls himself 'War'? Moreover, who _that I know_ calls himself 'War'? That is a pretty stupid nickname, especially in the light of circumstances… which I can't seem to recall clearly enough.

I suppose I _should_ be more worried about my soul, though, blackened thing that it is. There is not much that can be done for the twisted charred abomination. Nothing to mend, only a lot of bitterness and failure to drown in. I must have done a lot of really bad things.

"What can be done for him?"

"I'm not sure… what we do for anything wounded. Warmth, food, safety, and tangible loving care."

"I think that between us, we have enough care…"

Think I'm drifting again…

"…for ten of him, War."

x

"How long?" I mumble when I realise that I am once again awake. My memories are becoming clearer, but they don't feel like mine. I feel completely detached from them, as if the ritual and near-death experience happened to someone else. The occurrences leading up to that still remain hazy, but right now I'm too overwhelmed by emotions to concentrate on regaining my memory. I'm pissed off at these people for what they did to me, even though they seemed to have been unable to act differently, judging by the talk of love they've had before.

Strange, how no one noticed me up to this point, until I was dying naked in the mud – no, that's not quite true. There was someone… someone who noticed. Someone who helped me go on as far as I could… but… I can't seem to remember them.

It strikes me that no one answered my inquiry. There is no noise, no sounds of footsteps… have they – whoever they are – left me alone? Is love truly but a word?

What is going on?

I force my eyes to open, and my head to turn away from the wall, so that I can see the room. It's poky, decorated in browns, containing the bed I lie in, a table, a bench, and a rug. The window is completely covered by curtains.

It's also very empty of people.

x

I'm on the verge of slumbering because of sheer boredom when the door opens. This time, with the advantage of my re-positioning, I face the comer. It is…

Actually I have no idea. He has Weasley hair, clashing smartly with an outlandish grey and white outfit. Without glasses, I can't discern more.

He meets my _open_ eyes and freezes in shock.

"Harry?" he whispers, and a moment later he kneels at the foot of the bed in a fit of controlled panic. "Peace, Harry's awake!" he calls.

Hurried footsteps come from the next room, and second red-haired man comes in. I blink.

"That's well," he says in the melodious multi-voice, projecting an aura of calm. I can see why he would be called 'Peace'. Still, it doesn't explain who they are.

"How long?" I manage to repeat my question from a few hours ago. My throat is parched.

"You were unconscious for almost three days," the first man says while the second one produces a pitcher of clear water. He gently puts one hand under my head, pulls me up a little, and brings a glass to my lips. It's cold and wet. A tiny piece of heaven.

"You scared us." Yeah, I could hear that. They scared me, too. Still would, I just don't have the time to think about it. "You're through the worst, though." That's supposed to be something good, I guess. Funny – doesn't feel good.

"Who… 'ryu…"

"You don't know-"

I wouldn't ask if I knew. Damn… Waiting for hours took its toll. I _can_ stay awake long enough to hear the answer. I _can_…

Or not.


	2. Sons of Sun

A/N: Hi there! Here's the second chapter for your enjoyment. Don't forget to review!

Brynn

x

Sons of Sun 

x

This time I choose a different strategy and open my eyes before I do anything else. I'm pleased to realise that, aside from clarity, my strength also seems to be returning. It's not much, and I'm still a pathetically easy target, but at least I can look around without over-exerting myself. Seems that my keepers were right – I'm out of the critical condition. Into another one, sure, but a new problem demands a new set of solutions.

I glance to the left, and find the same room, except that something is different. The wooden pattern of the ceiling is more distinct in the light of the candles on the table. The rug covers raw stone, which I don't think I have seen as a floor lining before. The brown curtains are darker than before, which suggest that it's night-time. So does the sleeping figure reclining on the table, inches from the hot wax.

Then it hits me – I shouldn't be able to see details. I'm not wearing my glasses and I feel no charm on me… did they dose me with a potion? Is there even a potion? Why didn't Snape tell me about it…

Snape! Snape was the person I've been trying to remember… well… that's just strange.

"Harry?" someone whispers. I jerk and look up… into a pair of blue eyes.

"B-bill?"

"Hey, mate. How do you feel?" Save being royally confused by what the Hell is going on and overwhelmingly relieved by the fact that the people I am with truly are friendly, I feel just…

"Strange." I can't manage more than a whisper, but he gives me a blinding smile with the radiance of a small sun. He strokes my cheek out of sheer happiness of seeing me getting better, which is a first for me and therefore I have no idea how to react. I'm not exactly in a position to react with embarrassment or nonchalance, so I do the easiest thing and ignore that it ever happened.

"My eyes?" I inquire. This is the most pressing issue at the moment.

"What do you know about Khepri?" Bill asks, making himself comfortable sitting on the rug at the foot of my bed. I close my eyes, trying to concentrate. I come up with nothing. "Khepri is an Egyptian god – one of the solar deities. He is associated with rebirth, renewal and resurrection… new beginning, sometimes."

I try to extend my hand, but all that I manage is a tiny movement towards Bill's chest. He hesitates, and after a while pulls the right front side of the garment he's wearing (I don't know what it should be called; it's something foreign) to the side and bares a tiny tattoo on his breast bone. It doesn't look like a rune; rather like a… a beetle?

"A cult?" I ask, surprised that any of the Weasley children would let themselves be suckered into a denomination. Bill, however, resolutely shakes his head.

"Nothing like that. It's more like… a blessing. Curse-breaking in ancient tombs won't leave you unchanged, Harry…" I understand that. It makes sense. Practically anything to do with magic of any kind changes the wizard. I am a textbook example of that; so is Voldemort, and so, apparently, is Bill… and the other wizard who is here with us, of whose identity I have a strong suspicion.

"This mark gives me some authority in one of the local groups, without being actually a part of it… Essentially what happened to you is… _the Scarab granted you healing_." I think my expression conveys what I am feeling accurately, since Bill squirms, lets go of the cloth to cover his marking, and attempts to expand: "The… _holy_ beetle… found you worthy of a… _gift_. I can't explain it better, Harry, I'm sorry. I don't even know if it's permanent. I get a feeling that it depends on you."

I can see. I can see clearly even without glasses… I was given better sight by believers of some half-forgotten member of Egyptian pantheon. I'm not sure what to think. I'd thank them, but I would have appreciated it more if they'd killed Lord Terrordemort for me. But I don't object as long as they don't ask for anything in return. I won't even question it.

x

When we're interrupted, Bill has barely finished feeding me, which is a necessity (I'm woefully not strong enough) much less embarrassing than I would have expected it to be. He's calm and professional, while at the same time maintaining a cordial, friendly conversation. He speaks of his job, his colleagues, of the curses, of the city, and just about anything that is a part of his daily life. It all sounds wonderful.

When our last companion enters the room Bill is nearing the end of a story, one that actually is more significant to me than the others he has narrated.

"…and about three hours later they found me there, unconscious. Asim said that by rights I should have been dead, but the guardians found me 'worthy'. He never specified of what, but the survival itself was a nice thought. Anyway, I've had the Mark ever since."

"And it… doesn't hurt?" I ask. Speaking still causes me trouble. I need more rest… more time. One thing that I lack.

I'm torn out of my musing – and temporarily also out of my bleak mood – by a soft laugh. It sounds like several tiny glass bells, and turns heads automatically. I swear not even my CNS knew about the movement before I was staring at the third occupant of our humble abode… mesmerised.

I have met Charlie Weasley before, actually on more than one occasion. He used to look like a nice, but very ordinary young man, although caring for dragons had left him with a rather impressive musculature (which often caused him to look stocky, especially in the kind of clothing he preferred.) This wizard… doesn't compare. It is a completely different being. Dressed in reinforced _green_ denim trousers and off-white tunic, there is very little stocky about him. Not that he is lean, either. He has a half-familiar grace to his stance and motions, adopted from someone _outside_ the family…

Outside the species.

Charlie Weasley moves like a dragon. His semi-long hair whispers in a breeze that is not a current of air, but (I suspect) magic. Not controlled, either. It's a part of his aura… a sphere of peace and rock-solidness that he carries like other people wear perfume or Illusions. It is real and almost tangible – at the very least it makes my fingers tingle. He's got the same basic eye-colour as Bill (this is obvious, as he's staring into my eyes, quite possibly examining my soul) and yet the overall effect is… foudroyant.

"Hello," I whisper, because I can't think of anything else to say. In the given circumstances it is a considerably intelligent statement. Charlie smiles, which seems to change the temperature in the room.

"Hi, Harry. Great to see you coherent."

On that I have a different opinion, but I'll wait a few days before I start losing my temper about what these two did. Right now I'll pretend to be a good convalescent and let the pair of Weasleys explain anything and everything they can think of, starting with this startling change in Charlie. Although… in light of Bill's stories, I have a pretty good idea about that. I just can't imagine why he would hide… or maybe I can, too.

If he walked down the street like this, the population would tear him to pieces, drooling all the while. I squirm, inconspicuously moving so that the corner of my mouth is buried in the pillow. A precaution.

"How long?" I ask inquisitively. Charlie comes over and folds himself on the carpet next to his brother.

"Since I started working at the preserve." It's wonderful to talk to smart people when I'm this weak. I don't have to ask long, specific questions. They understand. "It was gradual, and in the beginning just plain scared me."

"Not scary…" I offer. He reimburses me for my effort with another smile. I can't tear my eyes away from it.

"To some it is. Could be a reason to kill me. I'm not… exactly hundred percent human anymore…" He doesn't sound nervous, thank Merlin. Anyone who knows me knows very well that I don't discriminate anyone because of their species (or species-related affliction, like Remus). The word on the tip of my tongue right now is beautiful, so I bite it. My tongue, I mean.

"I was surprised that you came in like this," Bill admits quietly, looking at his brother with both apprehension and appreciation. It's a complex feeling, but Bill is a complex man – he merely hides it well.

"I never feared Harry's reaction. He won't rat me out," Charlie proclaims with conviction that humbles me. I'm not someone to believe in, but the only one who understands it, really understands it, is Snape. There is a strange emptiness somewhere inside me, which shouldn't be there, because I've eaten. Loads.

"Who knows?" I inquire in an attempt to take my mind off Severus. For a moment there is a war between him and Charlie for space on my mind, and then Charlie wins by sheer force of presence.

"We'll talk about it later," Bill interrupts. "We're not going anywhere for at least a few days."

"Sleep, Harry," Charlie says melodically. "We'll wake you tomorrow for another meal."

I would protest, but in this case, obedience is easier.

x

I wake up from a nightmare, screaming.

These days Voldemort is too weak to send me any visions, but my subconscious must hate me as much as the Dark Lord does… besides, this wasn't even a nightmare as such, just a memory.

I sit, having launched myself upward in the initial shock, which is the only way I could muster enough energy. I concentrate on my breathing, but it doesn't help slowing it down.

When the door opens I flinch and scoot away, propelled by irrational but deep-seated fear of my uncle's wrath. He's dead. He's dead, he's dead. I killed him, I killed him, I killed him-

I flinch away as a hand touches my shoulder. In the total darkness it could be anyone.

"Steady, Harry…" says a soothing voice, still raspy from sleep. The lack of anger surprises me; so does the presence of fear.

"Who… Where…" I hate disorientation. I really, really hate disorientation. A candle lights up some five feet from me, filling a small sphere around its wick with dim orange glow. It's enough to see at least shadows.

One such shadow sits on the side of my bed, facing me, keeping its hand on my shoulder, gripping it reassuringly. The situation is new, unprecedented. It makes me uncertain; I'm not sure how to react, but I don't want them to think I don't appreciate it.

"Are you awake, now?" Bill asks quietly. I nod, although it's debatable whether he could see the gesture, and startle when he pulls me forwards. The world as I knew it is crashing around me in big chunks, shattering into tiny shards as they impact into each other. All the Darkness, all the fear and anger and hopelessness… everything I wanted to defeat in the last, desperate attempt on victory over my prophesised destroyer, it all floods the atmosphere, my mind, my soul… I now crave the suicide these two people denied me. I don't hate them for it, but I wish they would never have done it… I wish they would at least let me go now.

Bill is stroking my hair, but I remain silent. The only one in front of whom I ever let go even a little is Severus. This is _my_ mind-poison to deal with. This is _my_ prophecy, _my_ fate and _my_ war.

Bill and Charlie are just getting underfoot in the most disastrous way.

x

More than two days later I have had a few short, fitful mockeries of sleep and six meagre meals, since my stomach wouldn't accept more food. I didn't want it, but forced it down because in my pitiful state I couldn't even commit the suicide I find myself yearning for.

I've stopped speaking completely. I think I scare the Weasleys now, and rightly so. I can see it in their eyes: they want me to get better, they want to _save_ me, but not even I can save me. I'm floating in nothing, towards a bitter and painful end.

They are trying now not to leave me alone. I'm on a suicide watch, and perfectly aware of it, although if I had enough initiative and energy to kill myself, I could do it with little difficulty.

It's Charlie's turn to mind me. Bill usually sits on the carpet, either facing me or leaning against the bed, and talks to me about mythology and people he knows, and re-tells stories he's heard in the past. His younger brother, on the other hand, prefers to sit on the side of the bed,and more often than not keeps physical contact with me.

It's so easy to accept comfort from Charlie. He pets me, speaks to me in quiet soothing voices, and generally treats me like a sick animal, which I, I'm afraid, qualify as. He has got the most wonderful hands in the world. They were once, years ago, Quidditch hands, but now they are working hands, and they are big, gentle, caring, strong, reliable, trustworthy, Charlie's. They never leave me and I find myself momentarily giving myself over to them. When I become strong enough to sit, I start crawling into his lap, snuggling into the perceived safety (it's not real, but it helps diminish those of my fears that are irrational). Charlie's hands are on my back to keep me steady – at least one of them at all times – on my shoulders, the back of my neck, in my hair… but I like them most on my own hands, just holding, or moving me, or even, on much rarer occasions, his fingers tangling with mine. They are enough to fall in love with Charlie.

But he also has hair, red like copper, like blood, like wine, and thousand other things, depending on the light. It gleams in the Sun, as unmanageable as my own, though longer and softer and just plain beautiful. He has got a mouth that has a tiny scar on the bottom lip, an intersecting paler line. He has the voice that is the vocal equivalent of peace. He has the deepest blue eyes ever. I drown in them, but it's better than getting burnt. Anyway, I've lost myself in them hours or maybe days ago. I can now somehow _feel_ that he is not human (he barely resembles the man I remember from summer 1994), but all my senses scream _perfection_.

He smells like rain.

I become bolder in my struggle out of the cocoon of depression. They should have known what they were playing with before they started – now it's too late for them to shy away from my Darkness, and I won't give them a chance. They offered themselves – I take all.

At first it's just a brush of my hand against his ribs. He seems to have shrunk and at the same time hardened – as if all his muscles were forced into and contained within a smaller space. He thinks the touch was an accident and ignores it, all the while exuding the unnatural, eerie calm.

Next is his upper arm, and this time I clutch and there is no mistaking it for anything but a response. I want more, closer, more real, more _physical_… He takes it for a plea, but again it is misunderstood. I want him. Weak as I am, it takes me a long while to unfold myself, virtually climbing up vertebra by vertebra, until I am almost facing him, looking just slightly upwards.

I know now that he understands, but otherwise he remains unreadable. Merlin damn him, if he would help me just a little, just a hint, an answer…

I find a previously untapped reservoir of power inside me, and suddenly feel strong enough to control my body again. I put my left hand up as well, now clutching both Charlie's arms, and set out to shatter the calm, so that I can have a piece for myself. A piece of Peace, a piece of Charlie…

I kiss him, which he seems to have anticipated, although his response is minimal. When I angle my head he complies to me, opening his mouth, and draws me into one of the most wondrous experiences of my life, completely overpowering my eagerness, passion, and whatever I might have been feeling. His power over me is totally out of proportion. He would scare me, but he's so… so pure. Innocent. Like phoenixes. Like unicorns. Like dragons.

Dragons… Something must have happened to him in Romania. Something changed him. Made him harder, calmer, stronger, _better_ and so fucking radiantly beautiful. Superhuman.

And a bit colder. Everywhere. Even his mouth is nowhere near as hot as a human one should be; his tongue sends little jolts throughout my entire body caused mainly by the temperature difference – at least in the beginning. It could be because I have a fever, but I doubt it.

He pulls out of the kiss, his lips still caressing mine, and smoothes the stuck sweaty strands of hair from my face. I begin to notice other things – like my right hand having moved to the back of his neck, keeping him close to me, and like the weakness having disappeared. Something inside me has re-arranged and, although my energy is still severely depleted, I am able to operate.

I put a pressure on Charlie's neck to get him closer, and he grants me a little chaste kiss before pulling away completely – I was right about his superhuman strength, for he does it with appalling ease – and calls: "War!"

I sit, frozen in the moment, only peripherally aware of the door being opened and closed, the bed shifting as someone sits behind me, and a pair of arms weaving around me, twining between me and Charlie and separating us. I don't understand what's going on. Charlie leans down to me and gives me one more chaste kiss, cupping my cheek and stroking it with his thumb, and then he stands up and leaves.

I should be feeling the loss right about now, but there are hands holding me, and while they are not perfect like Charlie's, they are more… something. Leaner, warmer, with longer nails, which I can feel touching my chest. More human. So is the chest I am pulled against – firm, but if I were to strike there, the ribs would break and crush the lungs, shred the heart… yes, this is a _human_ holding me, and it feels so completely different from Charlie's perfection. A cheekbone grazes my ear and long, long strands of blood red fall into my view, pulled towards the ground with seemingly just slightly less gravity than would be considered normal.

"Are you sure you want this, Harry?" a warm, concerned voice asks me, whispering a mere inch away from my ear. Am I sure? I know nothing, I'm being pulled by the flow of fate or another supernatural force that decided to play with my life today. I only know that after I was denied absolution, I want my piece of abandonment. "There will be no going back from here."

Oh, but there never is going back. Not even the tiniest action can be completely undone once it has occurred. That is what time is for – and the handy little tools from the Department of Mysteries just tangle it more.

I twist in the embrace and place a kiss as far as I can without dislocating my neck, which is almost the corner of Bill's mouth. He loosens his hold on me, and with a series of surprisingly co-ordinated motions I am relocated so that I face him, straddling his thighs. I suppose I should be considerate and ask about Fleur… but consideration is for Light wizards, ergo it's Bill's to think about. He doesn't seem to do so.

I wonder why he does this – I don't question it, but I wonder. There's nothing about me to like (except perhaps my eyes, but when it comes to physical attraction, that doesn't amount to much). Is it possible that he cares about me – about what I need – so much, that he would go against his desires? Against his conviction? Maybe even against his family? I can't see Mrs Weasley rejoicing, were she to find out about this escapade…

Anyway, I want physical release so that it would pull me away from reality, at least for a while, and Bill does that wonderfully. His kisses aren't overpowering like the one from Charlie was; they are hotter, with more tongue and more passion. His nails scrape. His biceps bulge when he pulls me flush against him, and I feel his heartbeat and the frequency of his breathing.

I want. Therein lies the problem, because while I have this huge fervent thing inside me that insists to be let out, I don't know of any way. I must leave it up to Bill, and that means I must trust him. It's hard. It comes much, much harder now than the first time around, when little naïve me only had to hear it was going to a school for wizard and witches and would have gone to the end of the world if Hagrid only asked it to. Now, though I know people and death and could probably write an anthology of despair if only my chicken-scrawl was legible, I only have limited experience with life. That is Bill's domain. Therefore I have to trust. _Now_. I can't help but to suspect that it would have been easier with Charlie.

He meets my eyes for a moment, but the link between us is disrupted when he pulls the T-shirt somebody has lent me over my head. I start to tremble, not because of the sudden chill, but out of plebeian, irrational fear. It creeps over me like a soft touch of a dementor's slimy frigid hand, before I am engulfed in warmth and temporary safety again. Bill keeps me close, with my head tucked under his chin, waiting for me to calm down. I want to thank him, but the words get stuck in my throat just like the last fifty hours worth of comments and replies.

"We-" he speaks. My mind screams: Don't say it, don't say it, don't… please… "-don't-"

I put a hand on his mouth and look up at him, shaking off the weakness in the face of a fight. I am a weapon, in the end, and where there is enemy to defeat, there I am of use. Be it Voldemort or my screwed-up personal demons.

With agility that gradually returns to my trained body, I replace the hand with my mouth, and feel Bill responding differently now that I've become demanding. We have found a delicate balance, in which I am the one dominant mentally and he is the one dominant physically.

I let him rip me out of the over-exposed picture of reality I've been stuck in so far.


	3. Dragon Den

A/N: Hopefully, this chapter will clear the confusion a bit. Enjoy. Review.  
Brynn

x

Dragon Den 

x

It's about six hours since Bill and I _slept together_ for the first time. I still don't know what to call it. He has started out light, with just touching. It kept me occupied for a while, but not a long one. It was nice, but not _nice_ enough. I needed something destructive, a force that I couldn't control. I needed to lose myself.

And he gave me that. After a while, when he saw that I wasn't going to relent. I shudder to think how long it would have taken if he knew I had been a virgin. I didn't offer that particular piece of information, and it didn't even cross his mind to ask. Suppose the stigma of the Boy Who Lived is good at least for something.

He had waited until I was strong enough to hold my own against him, which was smart of him, although it didn't make me any happier. In the end I won, though, as evidenced by the aches in parts of my body I haven't experienced aching before… It has surprised me (pleasantly) how much pain there was involved. It's not masochism – at least I don't think it is – just a way to wrench me from inside my head. It's worked perfectly.

Yeah. Perfectly. I wore Bill out; he had been awake for about twenty hours straight before and needed the sleep. I can watch myself for a while and make sure that I don't commit suicide. I'm lying on my side with my back to the wall, facing the dusk of the room. Bill's rather long body is in similar position alongside me, gently curved so that we would fit onto the bed designed for one. He's made of shades of grey, all of him except his hair.

His hair, for the first time that I can remember, is loose, splayed all over the pillow, Bill's neck, shoulders and the upper part of his back, hanging over the edge of the bed… it's just everywhere. Here, sleeping like this, he doesn't seem so human. I trace the outline of his body with my fingertips, less than an inch from actually touching his skin. Even at that distance, I can feel the warmth and magic he radiates. I'm afraid it would seep out to the room, so I pull the sheet higher, almost to the half of his upper arm, to the dent between his biceps and triceps. A tremor runs through his body, dislodging a single lock of hair that falls on my hand, where it rests between my chest and the back of his neck.

He sighs and opens his eyes.

I can't see his face from my position, but I'm certain that he _has_ opened his eyes, and as soon as he's registered where he is and what's happened, they've gone wide and blank while he ran the last quarter a day through his head again and again, wondering if he'd made a mistake. I rest my forehead on his shoulder and shamelessly slip an arm around his ribcage.

"Do you regret it yet?" I query, and my voice betrays more anxiety than I would like it to. I don't mind him knowing that I don't want him to regret, that I enjoyed it and would enjoy it again should he offer. I just abhor displaying my weakness. As a proper Slytherin, I fancy.

Bill, however, sighs again. He has no words for me, no easy answer, and him clasping my hand is not enough to subdue the doubts. I would hate creating a martyr. If he feels like a victim, I'm leaving in the morning, no matter where we are stuck and no matter how unhealthy I am.

"You are very welcome, Harry," he says in the end. I suppress the urge to follow his example and sigh as well, but such gesture seems pathetic to me in the small room with nothing but darkness to pay attention to it. My exasperation is my own to deal with.

It comes only because I feel guilty. Not about having sex with Bill – that part was exciting and definitely worth whatever rules we may have broken in the process – but about Charlie. It was him I wanted in the first place. I feel guilty because I still think about what it would be like, if it would feel different, and, above all, why did he reject me.

Which leads me to wondering about why Bill did not. The depression obviously still reigns over me, and I'm going to need more than an orgasm or two to rise above my black cloud.

"What is worrying you?" he asks, voice still raspy from the sleep. I notice I've been gripping his hand way too tight. I let go, press an apologetic kiss to his shoulder, and rest my forehead on it again.

"Yesterday," I say truthfully, unwilling to specify more. But then I feel him tense and the fragile balance teeter, and remember that we have _trust_ between us. Trust doesn't work like this. "Not you… I'm grateful for _that_ part of yesterday. It's more the part before it that stings."

"Charlie?" he says, almost sure that he guesses right. He does, of course, and I am glad that I face his shoulder blade rather then his face as I give a mumbled positive response. Bill lets out a muffled cut-off chuckle. "It's not personal, Harry, not at all. I… It's not really my secret to tell, but it goes with the rest of the package – the radiance and strength and integrity. I don't think I can imagine Charlie feeling physical desire."

"Oh."

There really isn't more to tell. The idea never crossed my mind – I have never known (or heard of) a person like that. I should have expected some con, though – it's always like that in nature. If Charlie had children with a woman _altered_ like he is, they might create a whole new _superhuman_ race. Predators, or natural rulers of the mankind. Who knows what they would be capable of? With them having no in-built Achilles' heel, how would we defend? Still, this is just too cruel. Infertility would have been enough. Even that would be cruel to a Weasley.

But Charlie doesn't seem affected by it. His placidity in the face of adversity is eerie, like a drug addict's, or a heavy smoker's. He seems so detached from all negative… but, on the other hand, he reacts to positive impulses with the same attitude I had witnessed when I first met him. As if he was happy and let nothing disrupt that happiness.

"Charlie loves dragons so much, that he became one…" Bill speaks again after a while of silence. I listen, letting his explanation wash away the dirty feeling the shame had left me with. "To a point. It did not happen at once. It's gradual. He's been changing over the years, bit by bit, but he's taken to wearing Illusion Charms from the beginning…"

"So, you're the only one who knows?"

Why did he tell me? Why didn't he tell his parents, his siblings? Why does he wear an Illusion around himself even at home? What makes him trust me so much? And why am I here in the first place?

Come to think of it, where is here?

"Charlie and I are a lot like Fred and George, except that we were born on two separate occasions. Have you seen some older pictures of us? When he started Hogwarts, it took the teachers a while to realise he wasn't me. We looked almost the same."

"You grew different."

"Yeah. I'm taller, Charlie's stronger… I am fascinated by raw magic, he loves dragons… creatures generally, in fact."

"I've felt that. He treats _me_ like a _creature_… it was… amazing."

Bill laughs; it is a deep rumble that vibrates through his body and, via the touch, through mine also. His hair moves with it, and I reverently stroke his arm, because he's so special, so improbable, that I want to get as much of him as I can before the universe re-aligns itself and he's taken from me.

"Sleep, Harry," he mumbles, rolls over on his back, and kisses me. It doesn't do much to encourage me to sleep, but he quickly returns to the original position. Within a minute, his breathing is slow and regular, and he marginally relaxes. Driven by instinct and want, I put my arm around him before I surrender to the darkness again.

x

I wake up alone, with a jar of lemonade on the table and persistent rays of sunlight invading the room. After a tentative attempt to get myself out of bed I realise that my body is working – belatedly recalling the events of yesterday afternoon and today early morning, I'm not surprised that I'm able to move on my own. I'm merely slightly surprised that it doesn't ache anymore.

My clothes aren't in sight, so I take the white silk cover and wrap it around my waist. It creates a kind of skirt, and feels nicer than just about anything I have ever worn. I pad over to the jar, dragging an inch of the cloth over the floor because my legs are too short, and drink a few gulps of the wonderfully cool liquid. I can see dunes behind the curtains. The world stubbornly refuses to align itself back into the place I thought I knew for sixteen years.

With no one to stop me, I walk out of the room. There is an almost bare hall, with only sparse decoration to make the house look inhabited, and three more doors. The one leading outside is open; I survey the site and, after ascertaining that it is not accessible to public, exit.

"Hello, Harry," says a voice from the left and I don't have to look to recognise Charlie. I can hear that he's smiling, which relaxes me marginally, since I likely won't have to face his wrath for attempting to seduce him or seducing his brother. "I thought you might feel up to flying out of your cage today."

I suppose I should say something, but I don't know what. It's true that I haven't left the room for days, but I slept through most of the time and there were no locks on the door and no bars on the window… after living at the Dursleys, this didn't seem like a prison at all.

"Are you scared, Harry?"

Am I? I don't think so. Never was much for the fear thing… And since Sirius died, I lost the last vestiges of self-preservation instinct. No, I'm not scared.

"Confused…" I offer. That is, after all, to be expected. The clarity of everything, the blissful straightforwardness of my actions and obviousness of answers to the difficult questions is gone. Why couldn't they have let me die?

"It will get better," Charlie promises and, strangely, I get the feeling that it isn't an empty platitude. I wish he was right. I abandon watching the horizon – it's golden and cerulean, by the way – and pace over to the red-haired man, leaving shallow hollows of footsteps in the sand. He's sitting on a low wall made of burnt brick, dressed in a long sweeping white robe, or dress or habit or whatever it is. The rim trails on the ground; obviously the garment originally belonged to Bill.

"It would have already been," I say flatly. "You should have left me alone." The reprimand, however, falls on deaf ears. Charlie runs a hand through my hair. It feels unfamiliar, but he cares about me and the touch makes it undeniable. It's so strange that he would be so tactile and at the same time completely asexual. Or maybe he's not (so tactile), and only forces himself into it because he thinks that I need to be touched?

"Why are you doing this? And why did you stop me on Halloween?"

The hand moves from my head onto my shoulder and pulls me closer. Charlie strokes my biceps in a manner that makes me doubt Bill's words. I bite my lower lip to contain the moan that threatens to escape.

"Why?" I demand.

"Voldemort's death is not worth your life, Harry." Of course it is. I don't have much of life either way, but what I have is worth a lot less than Voldemort's death. How could they be so selfish? Why did they force me to continue this feckless existence, to count the victims of the war and the Cruciatus Curses in the dead of night? Don't I have enough on my conscience already?

"How many more lives is it worth? Who are you to doom tens or hundreds of people to save me?!"

"I don't require your forgiveness, baby, and neither does Bill." Charlie's voice is quite suddenly low and dangerous, more of a whisper, close to my ear. His hand clutches my upper arm in a vice-like grip. I'm still not scared. "We did what we believed to be the right thing to do, and we did it because we wanted to. Maybe one day your point of view will change, and you will understand. But until you have walked a mile in our shoes, don't you dare judge us."

"It is my life," I bite out, suicidally unconcerned about angering a dragon. "It was my decision, and you _robbed_ me of that right."

Charlie forcefully turns me around. The white cloth I've bound around my waist flaps in the wind and falls back down in folds; I feel its softness, staring into Charlie's blue eyes. There is lightning in them, so small but so overpowering…

"You don't love, Harry. You care for a select few, but you love no one and nothing. You cannot understand."

I pause, all of sudden forgetting my indignation. I don't love? But Dumbledore said… he said that love was the power… have I stopped loving? Or have I never truly loved in the first place? Charlie is right, though. I feel no need to live for anyone or anything; I'm an island on my own, tied just to Voldemort, who is to be either my murderer or my victim. I must love, but I cannot…

I'm fucked. And the wizarding world with me.

"Cold?" Charlie asks softly, returning to petting my hair. This time it's even more intimate, since he does so while I face him. I'm not cold. Far from it, actually. The day is sweltering. "We are doing what we can to help you."

No. No, you're not. You are helping only yourself, mistakenly believing that saving my life could grant you absolution. But I'm ill and hurting and don't want to be saved.

"I'm not only a depressed boy, _Peace_." He doesn't react to the provocation. "I'm also a person."

"Are you scared?" Weren't we through this already? No, I'm not scared. I'm not bloody afraid of anything – a side effect of the depression, naturally, but it feels great. "Or do you think that Bill objectifies you?"

My eyes widen in surprise. How exactly did we make this jump? I wasn't even thinking of Bill…

…though maybe I should have been. I have to admit that yesterday was different than all the other days in my life… somewhat more pronounced, as if the colours were sharper, my mind more aware, and my senses more sensitive. Everything was more real. It was almost… as if I've _lived_.

But Charlie raises a good question – does Bill objectify me? I remember our middle-of-the-night conversation, and… goddamn it, don't let it be so. I still want Charlie – the knowledge of his unavailability doesn't just make it go away – but I want Bill more. He made me feel human and alive, and I yearn to repeat the experience. I know I have to return to Britain and re-join the war, and he has to play the faithful boyfriend to Fleur, but I want to take every chance we have.

"Does he?" I gasp, breathless in the anticipation of the answer. Charlie sighs and presses a kiss to my temple. His fingers once again trace my upper arm – I'm going to have bruises there. Not that I care, but it's kind of satisfying to know that my body's going to complain on my behalf.

"No, Harry." I would smile if I felt like it, but at least I start breathing again. "Bill is… jaded, but all the hardness inside him – the one that enables him to bed you despite the threat of the damnation society has for such conduct – is balanced out by limitless tenderness-"

"That prompted him to give in to me when I asked for sex?" I ask coldly. Pity isn't much better than detachment. Actually it might be worse…

Charlie shakes his head, though.

"There you go again with that assumption. You are _wrong_, Harry. Bill might not be in love with you and you might not be in love with him, but does it make the experience cheaper when you feel 'only' friendship and tenderness?"

No. No, it definitely does not. At least now I understand why I was so confused at night.

"So… he truly wants me?" Me – the deranged, twisted child with tragic past and tragic future?

"He wants to help you," Charlie answers without really answering. Either the true answer is irrelevant, or negative. I like to believe it's irrelevant. Or perhaps he doesn't really know it – this is a question to ask of Bill, not anyone else. "He is not averse to the idea of bedding you." I'd say. I suspect he might even like it and… probably it's just wishful thinking on my part, but at times it seems like he's actually not imagining someone else in my stead. How fucked-up am I, when just the conception is balm on the tears on my soul?

I consider asking if Bill could ever love me, but I don't really want him to. I now see what he's doing: he's building me anew, separate from himself so that I won't crumble when left alone. If he succeeds – oh, how I hope he will – I'll be better than before. My metamorphosis, while unseen because happening on the inside, will be akin to Charlie's.

Looking at Charlie now, as he stands in the patch of sunlight, absorbing the warmth like a human lizard, he is more beautiful than any other mortal. However, with sudden clarity and a burst of joy in my chest, I realise that I don't love Charlie either. I admire him… worship, more accurately, but the rift between our levels is such that we could never meet, anyway. I'm grateful to him, and cherish his presence.

"Will we be able to go back to platonic friends when we return to Britain?" I muse aloud. Charlie shrugs.

"Does it really matter? Everyone in marked by war, Harry, one way or another. They will learn to respect our marks." And if not, they can bugger off and find themselves another Saviour. Right. In the end, it is well that love has nothing to do with it.

x

When Bill returns in the evening, it gives me an understanding of why the hall remains empty. Strewn on the floor are blueprints, photos of sparsely lit rooms and transcripts of hieroglyphs and Jeli Thuluth. I have always thought that curse-breaking was an adventurous, at times life-threatening job. I imagined teams of outstandingly powerful wizards scouting the depths of temples and fighting Dark Arts woven by some ancient long-since-dead mages.

I never realised how much academic preparation went into it. Bill sits cross-legged in the centre of the room, surrounded by open tomes – dictionaries, textbooks and history guides, riffling through one of them and making notes on a parchment covered with artlessly scribbled likeness to runes.

"Working?" I ask quietly. He looks up, startled, and smiles.

He smiles. At me. Just because he sees me.

"Yeah. There was a bit of cave-in in one of the temples that uncovered a new set of hidden corridors. It was either take it home with me, or work overtime." He stretches out his hand, beckoning me to come closer. I tiptoe among the parchments and volumens, holding the sheet I refused to exchange for real clothing (due to its unmatched comfort) in my left fist so that it doesn't drag behind. I halt about a step in front of him, but his hand remains extended. I squat down, since there is no other way to come yet closer to him.

He leans forward, over the books, and kisses me.

Gods, but I never imagined it like this. It's not love, and it's not a real relationship, and it shouldn't…

Whatever I thought is forgotten as I melt into the kiss. His tongue maps my mouth as he has mapped out the darkened secret corridors of the tomb.

Love is over-rated; I'll gladly make do with desire.


	4. Out in the Open

A/N: Hello! Here's the fourth installment of Metamorphosis. I regret to say that I will update Pantogogue less frequently in the next couple of weeks, because I don't want to spoil Metamorphosis for those of you who are reading it.  
This story _will_ foreshadow what is going to happen with the characters in Pantogogue, certainly, but I thought it was worth it… hope you forgive me. In the meantime, try and enjoy the trio's holiday.  
Brynn x Out in the Open 

x

Egypt agrees with me. I've spent two weeks within the confines of Bill's house and terrace, with only Charlie and Bill for company, and it was the best time of my life. The sexual tension between Charlie and myself has diminished to nothing, between Bill and myself rose to the point when we've had sex almost anywhere (including the bathroom, kitchen, hall and one early-aborted attempt outside on the terrace), before we've calmed down slightly and were able to have an entire conversation without an orgasm.

I suppose my breaking in into the world of sex could have been gentler, but, judging by past experience (I'm usually thrown into unknown to either swim or drown), it was to be expected. There is very little bashfulness and no regrets, even after several instances when Charlie couldn't keep himself from admonishing us. We simply fell in lust, and I took sex as pills against depression.

I must say, it worked wonderfully. It shouldn't have, on a normal person at least, but when have I ever been normal? If I had been a textbook example, Hermione could have dealt with me long ago. Although, as I'm not normal at all, I'm glad it's Bill rather than Hermione. Ron would kill me… and it would effectively destroy many, many friendships.

Today is the fifteenth of November 1996, and I'm going out. Alone.

x

I have come to terms with the fact that my life is subjected to Murphy's laws. Every time I allow either my curiosity or my righteousness to lead me into unknown or uncertain conditions, they quickly become known and unpleasant. I am not one of those lucky fictional characters that only need to step out the door and take their life into their own hands, and they meet a helpful stranger who shows them the ropes and assists them in saving the world.

I suppose Hagrid had attempted to show me _some_ ropes, and maybe that marked me for a life of meeting a slew of very unhelpful strangers every time I stick my nose out.

I'm not sure who these are – worshippers of Seth or Apophis, most likely, but the one that grabbed me and jabbed a wand into the back of my neck is neither Egyptian, nor a stranger. He wears three layers of white cloth to disguise himself as a local and to prevent his Dark Mark from showing through his sleeve.

"What a _chance_ meeting," he purrs into my ear while I search my memory for a face to go with the once un-pureblood-ly pimply face. Either way, I am inclined to disagree with him – a person as cynical as I am doesn't tend to believe in coincidences – but in the end I decide to keep my mouth shut.

Another thing I have come to terms with – I muse as I let myself be prodded and pulled away from public places, towards the local Death Eater hideout (I walk with a rather surprising lack of fear that comes either from remnants of depression or from some sort of mental disorder) – is that I can't seem to learn to stay safe. There is only one way to preserve me then: to become more dangerous than my danger. Am I so far at this point in time?

As I think about it, the entire world slides into perspective around me. I feel lighter, brighter, as though I had a taste of Charlie's calm. My body moves as if it was built of confidence, eternal and indestructible. It's a mere illusion, but, in this instance, a highly useful one.

Five minutes later, I'm steered through a door and, against all reasonable expectations, it's _not_ an entrance to a temple. The room looks like an office of some kind. The first thing that crosses my mind is 'embassy'. I consider pretending to trip over the threshold, but the Death Eater behind me is a former Quidditch player, with better than average reflexes, and I wouldn't gain any advantage either way.

I walk obediently, ignoring the three men sitting in the room in case that they could see in my eyes that I don't fear them. They laugh at me, three hyenas, loud and self-assured – but waiting for someone else to do the hard job so that they can join in on the celebratory feast.

I'm directed through another door, round the corner (where the wand looses contact with my skin for a few seconds) and up a narrow dank staircase stinking of urine.

As opposed to the foolish bravado I used to exercise in the past, I don't speak at all, and I don't get angry; he takes my silence for dejection. I catch a glimpse of a training field through a grimy window and correct my first impression. The building is not an embassy – it's barracks. I temporarily ended in the hands of Egyptian foreign legion or whatever…

Obviously, they are not overly smart though, since they didn't search me for a wand yet. Not that it would help them, since I don't actually have a wand with me (which spells that I'm not overly smart myself). It's still somewhere among the mess in the backpack Charlie carried from Scotland… anyway, it's not here.

Atop the staircase we have to take another turn, and this time I'm prepared for it. As soon as the tip of the wand cedes touching my skin, I spin around and smash the heel of my palm into Mr Quidditch-player's solar plexus. He's winded enough to not pose any danger for a moment – I use that to divest him of the wand, and shatter his windpipe. Bye, bye.

I wait until he's dead, and then turn my back on him and continue the way he was leading me. I come to a newer door with – most likely – a name written on it, but it's in Naskh, so I have no idea what it says. I knock.

"Amou!" yells a rough male voice from inside. I have no idea what it means, but, since he's apparently alone, I enter.

It is an office. Light comes in through a window on the left side. The wall opposite is covered with a huge flag with red, white and black stripe. A very ugly middle-aged man sits in front of it, behind a desk, holding a cava pen. Through the single layer of light white cloth, a black tattoo of a snake across his chest is clearly visible. A worshipper of Apophis, then…

…but I have been blessed by Khepri, and by extension by Ra. It doesn't get much better than that.

He rapidly stands up and lets go of the pen. I take a second to judge how dangerous an opponent he is, but he's not a wizard – he's a military officer. There is a grey uniform shirt hanging over the back of his chair, he wears grey uniform pants, and to my right a black uniform jacket hangs on a rack.

"Nim-"

I silence him, using the stolen wand and Accio a scabbard that dangles on a belt from the same rack. Inside is a sleek saif; it's a bit lighter than Gryffindor's sword, but fits into my hand well. The man opposite me recovers a gun from somewhere, but I get it away from him faster than he can unlock the safety.

I destroy the wand, and get on with what I do best – what I was trained for.

x

I skulk back to the house under the cover of the night, wearing the jacket I took from the Apophis-worshipper. I have decided I want to keep it as a war booty, mostly because it's the single most stylish piece of clothing I have ever owned (including the dress robes I wore to the Yule Ball).

The streets are vacant; local population seems to be trained to not leave their houses after sundown. Whoever I might meet here is likely to be some kind of criminal, but, on the other hand, I am a kind of criminal myself, am I not? Therefore I'm not much worried, just careful.

Nevertheless, I manage to get back to where I set out from a few hours prior without injury to my person, and with no worse-for-wear attackers in the streets of the town. The windows are dark; the house looks empty.

With trepidation, I climb the warded ladder up to the terrace. Once there, I take off my sandals, the belt with scabbard with the saif in it (which I nicked too, deeming it wise to carry a weapon with myself), and wrap it all in the jacket. The door hums under my fingers, but opens when I prod it. The obligatory creak is missing as I move into the obscurity, making small steps and touching the wall with the tips of my fingers to avoid stepping on Bill's work.

I shuffle to the door to my room (actually, it's Bill's room, but it's been temporarily released to me). I still can't hear anything, so I walk in.

In the dim light of a single candle I find Bill sitting on the bed, leaning back against the wall with his eyes closed, face taut as if in pain, hands gripping the silk cover I have once worn as a skirt.

"Bill? What's happened?" I ask quietly.

He blinks, unsure whether he truly heard a voice or just imagined it. When he spots me, the reaction is instantaneous. He springs from the bed toward me (my utmost trust is the only reason why I allow it without attempting to defend) and gathers me into his arms. He cradles me against his chest, breathing ruggedly, on the verge of crying.

"Oh gods, Harry…"

I stroke his hair as he buries his face in my nape.

"Bill?" I repeat.

"You were gone so long…" He kisses the patch of skin over my collarbone, closest to his lips. "I thought you were…" another kiss, "…not coming back. I though you were…"

He thought I was dead, and it reduced him to this. I'm practically hanging in his embrace, in too awkward a position to keep my own balance, while he mouths disjointed pieces of sentences and kisses every inch of me he can get to. It's actually far more bewildering and disconcerting than arousing.

"Bill…" I speak again. He lifts me and carries me onto the bed where he dislodges me into his lap, making me even more uncomfortable than I already was. Only then, completely certain that I am alright, he releases me from his grip.

"I'm sorry…" he says, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "I was just scared."

That doesn't bode well. He shouldn't be afraid for me. It will merely bring him more pain when we'll have gone back, and I will continue my war. He has to come to terms with it. I'm not his to worry about – I wasn't in the first place, but already forced into continuing my life I will be the one to make it, myself. Separate from him. I should have known he would become attached.

"What's happened?" I ask anew, because this is far more pressing right now than the discussion about our relationship (which is temporarily relegated to near future).

"Diana found us."

"Who is Diana?"

"Charlie's owl…" he explains. "She turned up around six. Charlie's gone with her to take care of the letter, but when you weren't coming I thought she was somehow traced…"

I tune out Bill's rambling and concentrate my thoughts. That actually explains a lot – for instance the _chance_ meeting with a Slytherin a few years senior to me. There were actually only four wizards in the barracks, but I'd bet more are scattered throughout the town. It's not safe here anymore. The house might be under Fidelius, but that won't protect Bill when he steps outside.

Whichever well-intentioned idiot sent us an owl?!

One who wanted us to return, I suppose. Well, he shall have his wish. There isn't much choice for us now. I would have very much liked to remain for another week, but it's not possible. Two, most three days from today we ought to be gone.

"…where were you?"

Bill has collected himself enough that I'm sure he'll neither hit the roof nor burst in tears when I tell him.

"Diana _was_ traced. I met a few old pals, and sent them where they belong," I announce calmly. I don't see his face, but can guess that it goes through several colours and expressions before he replies.

"Fuck."

I laugh.

"It's alright, War. They would have had to wake up earlier in the morning to get a shot through. But we'll have to go back to Hogwarts soon."

I would very much like to get off now, either in celebration of my so-called victory, or just to take my mind off the reality of our return journey, but Bill seems to need a different kind of comfort. Charlie's the best for this, but, unfortunately, he's not here, so it falls to me. Therefore we're still fully clothed when Bill falls asleep.

x

"Harry," someone whispers in my ear. I wake up (somewhat surprised that I'm not naked) and see Charlie leaning over me. He puts a finger to his lips and gestures to the door. I disentangle myself from Bill without waking him and follow Charlie out into the hall. He shuts the door behind us.

"Did you get back alright yesterday?"

I nod, trying to wipe the sleep from my eyes. Yeah, yesterday was a horrible day.

"Bill was in a right state," I mumble. Charlie sighs. I reckon we both think the same – Bill's too attached. He has to accept that I'll be gone in a few days, and most likely not coming back to him. He should get married and we'll never speak of this trip again.

"I saw you sword," Charlie remarks. "It was bloody."

Oh damn, I forgot to clean it. I think I'll keep it at least until I get back to Hogwarts and get my hand's on Gryffindor's sword… although, now that I think about it, why should I prefer a too-heavy relic, when I have a perfectly good weapon here? I might have killed its previous owner and it won't fit into a hat, but it feels better to me and slices with more ease.

Charlie lifts his eyebrows, and I realise he's waiting for an answer to an un-stated question.

"I got abducted and chopped my way out," I say with an insane grin. It's not real, but Charlie's interrogation is not nice, especially so early in the morning, and I want to spread my unhappiness. "Already told Bill we'll have to move. And good morning to you too, Peace," I drawl in an imitation of Draco, turn my back on Charlie and walk to the bathroom.

x

Half an hour later, I'm having breakfast with both of them. They keep giving me a wide range of discontent expressions, from anger to reproof to fear, while I do my best to ignore them. It's none of their business. I shouldn't even be here. It's just them sticking their noses where they don't belong. If they don't like the way I am, they should have just fucking left me to die.

I let the fork rattle on the plate and abandon the neigh-full plate on the table.

They stare at me as I depart; Bill calls something, but I've already decided to ignore them. I walk out onto the terrace and soak up the sunlight. The horizon lost its uniqueness after days I've spent here, so I stand with my eyes closed and try to clear my mind. It, shockingly, seems easy. My emotions have returned after five months of absence, but I've retained the ability to Occlude.

Once I stop being irritable, I find that all three of us could have handled that better. They were too worried, I was being too flippant. Charlie's first question was about how I'm feeling, and I got snarky with him because of that. A lot like Snape, I've become, with all my bitterness, cynicism, and contempt for those who care. Humanity is just so stupid.

A single tear of frustration slides down my cheek, and I feel arms locking around me from behind. I'm glad it's not Charlie – I'm not in the mood to be presented with his perfection right now. Bill has flaws, and I appreciate them more than he'll ever know.

"Don't be mad, Harry," he says quietly, subdued. I comply. "It was beautiful, and I loved every minute of it while it lasted." The ice within me melts. "I'll be here for you as long as I can. Whenever you need something… I'll be here for you. I'll be right here…"

I spin around in his arms and meet him halfway for a kiss. It's the first time I put in something more than just desire or hope for comfort. It's full of hurt and giving up and tenderness, because we both care. It matters more than it should; although I don't feel as strongly as they must have, I suppose this irrational need and despair is the reason why they refused to let me die. I don't think I can fight it either… trouble is, I must.

x

While we pack, I ask the question that's been nagging me since Halloween.

"Why War and Peace?" In hindsight, it wasn't such a good idea, but the silence was leaving too much space for bad thoughts. It's strange to talk while we don't even see each other, but it's better than not talk at all.

"Pet names. We got them from Fred and George when they were about five. I don't believe they remember it – we don't use them around the rest of the family." But they do around me. I suppose I shouldn't have let my hopes get too high. "You're the first apart from us to know." Then again, maybe I should have.

"You need one, too," Bill says suddenly. Well, there are less sensible things we could fill the silence with…there must be, right?

"Violence," I state. That fits me perfectly. It's what I told Snape in July, and I still feel like that. After the day before yesterday I don't doubt that the new me is just the same.

"No-o," he whines, hiding the indignation that I would suggest something so horrible, behind mocking. As if 'War' wasn't equally tasteless. "Too long." I grin maniacally. It's still an empty, feeling-less expression, but at least I try.

"I thought Eclipse, but it doesn't fit," Charlie intervenes with something that he hopes won't lead to an argument or, in the worse case, a fight. "And Effervescence is ginormous."

"Vex," I suggest, sounding serious but keeping a heavy load of irony silent for private amusement. All my things are packed and I walk into the hall.

"That's just a synonym to your name," Charlie waves it off, giving me a covert glare for my not sneaky enough cynicism. "How could your parents saddle you with that…" I resent that. I might not exactly like my name, but that's not a reason to insult my parents. Charlie's more likely to get cursed than Bill now. I grit my teeth and stand next to the door, ready to go.

"Stria…" Bill suggests wearily. Yeah, Latin's supposed to sound cool and magical. Except that…

"It sounds like Draco's wit from a year ago." I don't bother keeping myself from scowling. I feel like hurting someone. Permanently.

"This debate is pointless," Charlie announces (smart lad, isn't he?), looking around to see whether we forgot something. Each of us carries a personal storm cloud over his head, and were we to come close enough to each other, there would be lightning. It's the highest time to shut up. "You'll stumble upon a name, and it will stick."

I nod. I don't think that they realise that I had too many nicknames in the past. So far, only one stuck, and I definitely wouldn't want to have them calling me Freak.

"So, how are we coming back to UK?" I ask stepping out on the terrace, for the last time taking in the view.

"I've got a permanent two-way Portkey," Bill replies. He carries a suitcase and a shrunk trunk. I take the suitcase from his hand and he searches in his pocket for the object. It's a (Ministry-approved) huge brass key, which Bill keeps on a chain fastened to his clothes on the opposite end. "It's tuned to the Burrow, though, so be on your guard."

I silently nod and take out my wand. Our eyes meet for a moment; he lets go of the key (which dangles on the chain and bumps into his calf) and cups my face in both hands. I know this is the last time. Once we take that Portkey this cedes being real. It'll become a mere dream, something to think of when the reality goes to Hell. My heart beats too fast and my hands shake, but it's the _fucking_ last kiss and we make the most of it.

Charlie patiently waits for us to separate. Once we do, Bill lifts the key and Charlie and I touch it (there's just enough room for our fingers).

And Bill says: "Home."


	5. Home

A/N: Another chapter for your enjoyment… hopefully. This is chronologically a bit before and during 'Misanthrope' of _Pantogogue_ – that's why I slowed down with updating it, so _Metamorphosis_ could catch up.  
Brynn

x

Home 

x

I hit the ground in a low crouch – a reflex devised for double purpose. It doesn't throw me off my feet as it would otherwise and, if I land in hostile environment, chances are the first volley will go over my head.

The Burrow is cold, quiet, desolate. I hate it all the more because I remember how warm and homey it felt once upon a time. There are no personal affects left here. Bare walls, rotting furniture and few mouldy cloths that Mrs Weasley deemed not worth taking with them are what's left of the Weasley family house. The upper floors have fallen apart without magic to sustain them and lie in the garden as heaps of rubble. Even the ghoul is silent. Of course, there is no attic for him to inhabit.

Charlie, looking ordinary with his Illusion active, shivers. Bill's used to the sight, but it makes him sad nevertheless. That's their childhood in the walls around us – dead and forgotten.

"Do you hear anything?" Charlie whispers. Bill and I shake our heads. But it's too quiet. There should be birds in the trees outside, at the very least. On a nice day (which today is not) the sounds from Ottery St Catchpole could be heard in the kitchen. An open window creaks in the draught and it's all I can do not to jump.

"Let's get out of here," Bill says roughly, and quickly strides over to the door leading outside into the garden. He almost touches it before Charlie grabs his hand and effectively stops him – not even he can do anything against the superhuman strength.

"What?"

Charlie's nostrils flare; he points at the door with his free hand.

"Smells fishy."

"A trap?" I ask looking between the two of them.

"Most likely," Charlie agrees. "They couldn't get inside, so they rigged the doors. Chances are there are detection wards against everything, and they dive in on us as soon as we cross the threshold."

"So we either take a Portkey out – which will land us back in Egypt – or we open the Burrow to Death Eaters," I more state than ask, for the sake of clarifying the situation to myself. It's not too bad. Better than: you, kid, either you burn this guy to death with your hands and feel all that he does, or you die. I smile grimly.

"That sounds about correct," Bill responds with a wry smile on his own. He looks around and shrugs. Jaded, Charlie's said. I can see it now. Burrow isn't his home anymore, isn't anybody's home, actually. Opening it to Death Eaters is just an unpleasant necessity. Charlie takes it much worse, hugging himself and rubbing his upper arms as if he was cold.

"Will the wards hold if we close the door behind us?"

"They should." Bill doesn't sound too certain, but not too concerned either. He's emotionally cut himself off. So this is how it's done properly. I study him for a moment and then look to the other side of the kitchen.

"What about the windows. Are they rigged?"

Charlie sniffs the air, goes closer to the window, though taking care to remain out of sight form outside, and sniffs again. Then he nods.

"But at least one must be open. Does that mean they got in?"

I notice movement of shadows out of the corner of my eye. The intruder's panicked. Bill and Charlie lift their wands, but the thing's already gone, leaving a trail of green slime behind.

"A bundimun." They both sigh in relief, but I feel none. "Still doesn't explain the window." I put Bill's suitcase on the table and go upstairs, trying to determine where the creak had come from. The door to what used to be Ron's bedroom is ripped off its hinges. I approach slowly, with my wand at the ready, but the place is empty. I disturb a few more bundimuns that scatter. The window is, indeed, open; the lock seems to be broken out of the frame. I walk over to it and look down on the lawn.

There lies a little mangled body of an ugly creature. It's so utterly pitiful…

I let out a foul curse and return to the basement. Bill and Charlie are debating the use of revealing charms on the door, which is the most reasonable action right now. Or we could blast the wood to smithereens, but the second part of the plan – closing it behind us – might prove somewhat problematic in that case. They turn to me with a silent question.

"The ghoul," I say, pretending that I don't care. "It's dead." Bill just nods, but Charlie seems just as affected as I was, or even more. His love for all creatures isn't an asset in war.

"Find out what they put over the wards, and we'll see if we can salvage the building," I suggest coldly, and they do so, knowing full well that it's the best option we have.

This is Bill's expertise, so we let him do it. I take the suitcase from the table in case we'll have to run, Charlie grabs the second one to free Bill's hands. It's but a moment and the wards flare to life with a banshee-like screech.

"Detection of use of magic," Bill informs us, before casting a rapid succession of spells. The lock clicks and he kicks the door open. "Don't touch it!"

Charlie rushes out, I run on his heels. We hear a slam and the wards calm, but the screech – which was added by the Death Eaters – continues. Several black-robed figures Apparate on the road and set out in our direction. We run for the opposite edge of the garden, following Charlie's lead. There is no gate here, but he jumps over the fence with appalling ease. Bill and I follow with much less grace, in my case throwing the suitcase first and then jumping. Charlie catches the luggage and disappears; Bill reaches for my hand and Apparates us away. The screech dies.

x

We appear in the centre of the living room in Grimmauld Place in front of Tonks, Remus and Hestia Jones, who let out a cacophony of surprised exclamations. Neither of them attempts to curse us, though, and thus all is well until Bill falls forward onto me and sends me to my knees with the impact.

"Charlie!" I shout, and lay Bill down on the carpet, trying to figure out what's wrong. His hands are coated with violet crystals, which is an indication of a problem, and he has a nasty wound on thigh – it seems that the artery was ruptured.

Charlie, who has obviously aimed for a different room (or didn't refine his aim as much as he's believed to), barges in and skids on his knees next to his brother. One of the trinity we have surprised got over their shock and ran out of the room, hopefully calling for help. I gesture towards Bill's hands and Charlie moves over there, while I rip Bill's trousers and hold the edges of the wound together. It doesn't look like it's from the fence-planks; he must have been attacked by some plant when we ran across the back part of the garden.

It's easy to mend; these spells were among the first I researched when I returned to Hogwarts in September. Bill hasn't even lost much blood. I'm more worried about the curse he contracted. Really, he should have at least worn gloves… My subconscious provides me with a memory of those hands on my skin, how soft and at the same time rough they were, their touch gentle and yet forceful…

"I don't know!" Charlie exclaims angrily. "Curse-breaking is his turf!"

But Dark Magic is mine. Violet. What could it mean, violet? Seventh Chakra, modesty and candour, the indication of a magic-practitioner, luxury… that doesn't help. Space/thought, air… it was contracted through air.

I force myself to calm down and wait for help. When the person to enter is Snape, I feel an almost forgotten emotion flood me.

x

"Harry, my boy," Dumbledore announces himself, as if I didn't notice him coming in simply by the waft of citrus and old man that lingers around him. I continue staring out of the window at the rainy filthy London, and do some last-second deciding. Dumbledore's patronising is driving me to homicide, but I can't afford to build a rift between us, and he doesn't need to know my feelings. No longer will I be an open book for anyone to read…

"Hello, sir," I say timidly, in a rather good resemblance to myself from the first year. Yeah, shyness is the way to go. And a large dose of naivety.

"I have heard about your misadventures from Mr Weasley. I wondered if you wanted to add something to the tale?" Which Mr Weasley? What do you want me to think you know, old coot?

"We were in Egypt, sir. I was ill and Bill and Charlie helped me recover." There. You knew that already, I'm sure, and there's no harm in giving you the information anyway, since Bill's home was compromised. I wonder, was it you who sent the owl to uproot us?

"Why did you not search out Madam Pomfrey if you were unwell, my boy?"

Well, now it would be useful to know what he already knows. I certainly don't want him to think that I lie to him.

"I collapsed outside of Hogsmeade, sir. I don't remember much of what happened, but I woke up in a bed somewhere warm. I was very weak at first, could hardly speak. They had…" a little bit of embarrassment added here for effect, "…had to help me eat. It was awful."

"I'm so sorry, dear boy." Doesn't he get sick of the repetitiveness? Even I don't add 'sir' to the end of _every_ sentence (although Snape would claim that I was simply being disrespectful). "Would you mind telling me what you were doing in Hogsmeade during classes?" The man is good, I have to give it to him. There was not a hint of reproach in that sentence. It doesn't lessen my troubles, though. I can keep the information to myself right now, but he's going to find out either way. Perhaps the best damage control would be to give him something, and let him draw his own conclusions.

"I've read this book, sir… I've gotten it from Si-Sirius…" The stammer is fake, and I'm somewhat surprised to realise that it doesn't hurt to talk about my Godfather anymore. I'm alright, but the more vulnerable Dumbledore thinks I am, the better for me. I sniff, and the Headmaster's eyes shine with concern and sympathy. "There was a ritual…"

"What kind of ritual, Harry?" There is a subtle change in his skin colour, which could pass for paling. Now for the difficult part. How to make myself look ashamed? Blush, sure. How to blush…

I try to think about Bill and our intimate encounters and manage a pleasant flush, but the point is that I got red, and Dumbledore will read it as he wishes to.

"B-blood ritual, sir. I know it's wrong," I add defensively, "but I was so desperate! I don't know how I'm supposed to… to vanquish… Voldemort." I offer myself a silent applause in the privacy of my well-Occluded mind. Dumbledore puts his hand on my shoulder and squeezes. I could cast an Unforgivable and the man would try to placate me, I'm sure.

"Harry, child… we all make mistakes. It is important to admit to them, and attempt to make it up. And since you did not actually harm anyone…" Oh, but I wanted to. And I don't consider it a mistake – I don't hate Bill and Charlie for stopping me from dying anymore, but I still think it would have been better that way. But Dumbledore has a different idea: "all you have to make up for is a bit of schoolwork. Your teachers have already consented to give you an independent study plan, up until the Christmas holidays. By that time you should be caught up on all your subjects."

While I doubt there's actually anything that my classmates learnt in the past two weeks that I don't know, I'm not about to inform the coot.

"Thank you, sir!" I say with a grin. He seems happy about making me happy and finally, _finally_ leaves me alone. I have to go check up on Bill as soon as the air is clear.

x

Clapping of a single pair of hands disturbs the quiet I've longed for. I turn around; in the doorway to the living room is Snape, applauding me and, judging by his facial expression, meaning it. I can't detect a sign of mocking.

"Professor," I say by way of greeting. He steps into the library and sets up a Silencing Ward to give us a bit of privacy.

"That was an outstanding piece of acting, Mr Potter," he says calmly and sits down into the armchair next to mine.

"Acting, sir?" I play stupid. We gaze at each other for about ten seconds. Then I scoff self-deprecatingly. I knew I couldn't keep this from him. He's far too perceptive.

"There is no way you could go from an emotionless killing machine to a naïve childish brat, unless you blocked out a massive amount of memories, Mr Potter. And I think we have established that you remember everything very well."

I lift an eyebrow, but he waves my concern away.

"Do not worry; I will not be the one to disclose this secret of yours."

I nod gratefully, and ask the question I wanted to ask for a long time (at least so it seems to me).

"How is Bill?"

"Conscious," Snape replies curtly and concisely. I feel a weight lifting from my chest. I guess I'm far more attached to Bill than I suspected.

"Thank you, Professor" I say and offer a half-bow, which is the most respect I've ever given to anyone. The information itself was valuable and brought much happiness, but Snape was in fact the one who made Bill's recovery happen, and I shall never forget that.

"May I…"

"Oh, go on, Potter, before you step out a hole in the carpet." I run out of the room.

x

My enthusiasm is largely dampened by the presence of one French hussy in Bill's room. I notice my own discomfort – luckily for myself and just about everyone else it is _not_ jealousy – and curse myself for it. I slept with this woman's lover. And I would very much like to do it again. _And_, although I'm not likely to, there is still a bond between us that won't ever dissipate.

"Hi, Bill," I say, remembering an occasion about two weeks ago when our roles were reversed. He seems to find humour in the occurrence as well, even though it is Fleur and not myself who sits on the side of his bed. I nonchalantly lean against the wall and return his smile.

"Hi, Harry," he greets back, and our shoulders shake, although we don't break in outright laughter despite the hilarity. Poor Fleur notices she's being left out of the joke, even though there, in fact, is no joke. She glares at me and I suppress the urge to stick my tongue out at her.

"Hi, Fleur," I add. Her glare intensifies. Apparently she believes I'm mocking her. Which the good little naïve Harry wouldn't do. "I haven't seen you in a while," I say truthfully. "How are you?" I am not interested nearly as much as what I portray, but the point is to make her think that I am… well, stupid. She already knows it from before (since the Triwizard Tournament when I lost the first place in the Second Task because of pointless nobility); I only let her think that nothing has changed.

She chatters on with heavy accent that gives me headache and after a while, when I act like I don't notice her glares and scowls, which are her way of suggesting that I should leave, she excuses herself to go to the bathroom.

Bill relaxes almost like he used to in Egypt.

"She was worried," he explains. I shrug – I don't care – and come closer to him. I kneel next to the bed and take his hand into mine to examine the bandages. They are shiny white, smelling of herbs. Snape is truly a godsend.

"Are you feeling better?" I inquire, and give him a hard look when he opens his mouth to deliver the rehearsed lie he's already fed to his fiancée and mother and Merlin knows who else.

"Damn you, Harry. You just can't make anything easier." It's not exactly my forte – to make things easy. I don't want him to lie to me. I bet he wouldn't try and lie to Charlie, and while I can never claim to be as close to him as Charlie is, I hope to prove equally trustworthy.

"It hurts, doesn't it."

"Like sunburn under hot water. Nothing I can't stand." I am sorry, but it means nothing. It's not my fault; even though I was there in the beginning and I was the one being saved, I know it's not my fault and don't feel guilty. It just hurts me to see him in pain.

"You would have died," I guess he was told this, but in the case he wasn't he should know. "Snape patched you up."

"He was here earlier. I promised him a bottle of Firewhisky."

I chuckle and shake my head. Snape prefers Alsikescotch. Although I can't understand why; it's disgusting.

"I'll give him a kiss for you if you want," I say with a heavy dose of sarcasm and Bill finally laughs, though whether at the imagery or at me being an idiot I don't find out, since Fleur returns from the bathroom and with renewed haughtiness outright asks me to leave, stating Bill's need for rest as the reason.


	6. Surrounded by Idiots

Surrounded by Idiots 

x

I've doubted my ability to convince Dumbledore to let me spend this week in Grimmauld Place and not force me to return to Hogwarts, but I got some unexpected help from Bill and Charlie there; they asked the Headmaster themselves, offering to help me catch up with my studies in return for my keeping Bill occupied while Fleur was gone.

That is how I came to be sitting on the side of Bill's bed at eight in the morning. I've considered bringing a chair, but discarded the idea quickly; our physical proximity fills the room with a low hum not unlike wards, and I can't be bothered to give it up for some illusion of propriety. Nevertheless, there are spells on the door to alert us if anyone is coming in.

Despite his condition, Bill doesn't sleep much. He gets bored quickly, since he's used to have something to do at all times, and then becomes edgy and easily irritable. Fleur has been seen storming out of his room several times. I understand quite well how frustrating it can be – forbidden to do magic and unable to touch anything with his hands. He can't even read a book… at least on his own he can't.

"What do you want to start with?" he asks, eyeing the stack of books Dumbledore had delivered for me. I could pretend that I don't know the stuff, but Bill's spent too much time with me to fall for my charade, and going over these schoolbooks would be a loss of potentially valuable time.

"Would you teach me something else?" He looks at the cover of the Defence textbook, and frowns. I don't need him to tell me that this subject matter is going to be essential for me – I knew that since I got the book and acted accordingly. "I could take the finals today and pass, Bill," I assure him. He looks dubious but takes my word on it.

"What do you want me to teach to you?"

"Magical theory and general curse-breaking," I reply without hesitation. I've seen his books, even read few of those that were in English. He's highly specialised in Egyptian tomb raiding, but to get so far he had to go through extensive training in less specific fields first.

He breaks into a smile.

"The suitcase is under the bed, Harry." I remember it – it's the one I've helped him carry. The one full of books.

x

"There's something different about you, Harry," Remus announces when I come into the lounge, once again thrown out by Fleur. After hours spent with Bill I'm in a good mood – not exhilarated, but he's a great company even when we're not having sex. Remus's suspicions are mite uncomfortable, but I'm reasonably sure that he doesn't really know anything. He might have subconsciously noticed some minor differences from the old me (which he didn't pay all that much attention to, anyway), or he could have smelt something…

"Is there?" I ask, feigning a surprise. He frowns and scrutinises me closely to get to the bottom of the newest mystery.

"He's not wearing glasses, of course," Tonks establishes from the doorway and dances in, putting an arm around Remus's waist. I thought they wanted to keep their relationship secret, but I can't say I feel anything about it. Hope they are happy together and cast Silencing Charms when the get it on.

"You're right!" Remus exclaims. "But I saw you reading…"

"Don't need them anymore," I explain calmly and settle in a loveseat that must be a new addition to the furniture. It's way too cushy for my comfort and after a moment of deliberating I relocate onto the floor. The carpet is just soft enough.

"How?" he growls. "I for a fact know that there are not spells exact enough to correct vision…"

I blink up at him, startled. Where does he get off talking to me like that? I would very much like to tell him to piss off and stop sticking his nose where it doesn't belong, but it wouldn't exactly fit with my crafted Boy Who Lived persona.

"Remus… It was a lucky freak accident, alright? I can't explain it." Which is the truth, but misleading approximately like Dumbledore's wise cracks.

"When did it happen?"

Why won't he stop hounding me?! I hide my glower behind a book that is spelled to look like History of Magic (with just about anything else I might encounter a soul who would wish to help me learn).

"About a fortnight ago."

"Were there any side-effects? Did you see a Healer?"

Yeah, there were fucking side effects. And no, I saw no Healer.

"I feel fine, Remus," I say blandly.

"I'm calling Poppy now," he informs me, and aims for the fireplace.

"_Snape_ said I was alright!" I call after him in annoyance. It's not exactly true, but I want him and all the Healers in the world to leave me alone. I want to never again set foot inside a hospital. And I want Remus to stop treating me like his child when he couldn't be bothered about me three weeks ago.

"Remus!" Tonks comes to my aid, giving me a conspiratorial wink. I smile back at her and grimace at her back once it's turned. She races after her lover to persuade him to give me some breathing space.

x

I'm tired of Remus's fussing, tired of Mrs Weasley incessant moaning, tired of Tonks's chumminess. I play the good little Golden Boy puppet and they are all ecstatic to see me so well behaved and calm. I cherish every second spent with Bill. Our time together is filled with one of the most exciting branches of magic I've encountered so far. I can totally understand what led him to become a curse-breaker. It's fascinating… and I seem to have talent for it.

In my effort to avoid socialisation I pretend to be studious and eager to make up for what I've missed – under this guise I read two to three books a day. There is a lot of references to Ancient Runes and I'm determined to read up on that as well (could be something to do with my free time until Christmas holidays). Unfortunately, Bill's textbooks were inherited by Percy, who kept them, and thus I was left to scour the Black library. I found some older editions, and – here comes the silver lining – Ancient Runes aren't changing with the times. The tomes stink and the parchment crumbles around the edges, but they will have to do.

I'm actually entranced in Spatio-temporal Magick, when a crack has me pulling out my wand in reflex.

There is no danger imminent, though (which I would have known if I had taken the time to realise that I'm still in the ancestral abode of The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black), and I relax, letting my hand down.

"Hello, Dorraz," I greet the house elf, who, in turn, scowls at me. This is one Malfoy servant that I don't have much appreciation for. She used to be Narcissa's 'personal assistant', and the experience left her as snooty as a house elf could possibly be.

"Master Harry Potter," she replies with a marginal bow, not an inch deeper than required. "My Master Lord Malfoy sends me with regards and a message for you."

I put the book down and straighten, facing her with as much regal nattiness as I can fake.

"Speak," I command. I like to treat house elves with kindness, but Dorraz doesn't appreciate it, and tends to scoff at me when I do so. I've learnt to be short and disinterested with her, and she keeps her disdain for me hidden. I wonder if a beating would make her like me… but I'm not going to try it.

"Lord Malfoy wishes me to inform you that the Dark Lord Riddle has planned an assault on Whipsnade Park Zoo in Bedfordshire in order to purloin several magical creatures with the intention to use them in warfare."

Fabulous. Just what we needed… although it's quite comprehensible, and we should have expected it. We've thinned Terrordemort's lines so rapidly, that he needs new allies anon. On the other hand, in the face of his recent defeats, it must be difficult to convince worthwhile wizards and magical beings to join him.

"When does he plan to attack?"

"As soon as he amasses his forces," Dorraz replies tightly.

"Do you know when that will be?"

"Yes."

I'm becoming annoyed with her, too. It's not a rare occurrence – she does have a not nice habit of irritating me – but I'm usually not as fed up with almost everyone as I am today.

"Tell me everything you know about the planned attack on Whipsnade Zoo!" There. Can't be much more concise and exact than that. Dorraz tries to suppress a grin, happy with having managed to get a rise out of me. I sometimes wonder if Draco puts her up to it, or if it is just that all Malfoy house elves have very strange personalities.

She relents, however, and fills me in with dedication to her role that I can't help but commend.

x

On Sunday morning the general atmosphere in Grimmauld Place is glum, filled with tangible fear, but I feel like laughing. This irrational happiness comes from Bill sitting next to me in the lounge, eating on his own and cleared by Snape to do magic again. He wears gloves reaching past his elbow, silk on the inside, leather on the outside, but otherwise is capable of perfectly normal life.

Well, as normal as it gets in this location with this company.

At eleven, a meeting of selected members of the Order starts, and I sit in (without asking for permission, but I would like to see them try and boot me out). Neither Dumbledore nor Moody could make it, so it is under the unofficial lead of Remus, who turns out to be totally incompetent in the position of a moderator.

They start by rehashing what all they have (not) done since the last meeting and, as usually, it seems to me that they are just waiting for Voldemort to get his act back together so he can raid a few more towns.

_Nothing_ is happening.

Then, tired of the incompetence – although I must admit that they are not likely to have the means necessary to do anything useful anyway – I have Bill relay Draco's report on the house elves' findings. Being the first substantial information to be heard at the meeting, it causes a lot of ruckus.

"Why a Zoo? Has he gone totally loony?"

"It makes no sense!"

"Malfoy's pulling our leg!"

I meet Snape's eyes across the room. He's lurking in his second most favourite corner of the room, annoyed at being required to attend and downright resentful towards the rampant bigotry.

"Shut up!" bellows a tiny man from the second (and last) row of seats in a high-pitched yet surprisingly loud voice. The idiots are shocked into silence, several in the adjacent seats reaching up to their ears.

"Truckle," Bill whispers to me. I nod, but don't look at him, watching a woman next to the tiny man stand up and clear her throat in a way that doesn't make me squeeze it.

"It _does_ make sense…" she states evenly, with an undercurrent of derision for her audience. There is a scholarly air around her, accentuated by the quill sticking out from the pocket of her over-large man's coat. "The number of purebloods that died in the July Battle of Hogwarts is alarming. Those who bought into Big Bastard's racist fanaticism have been eradicated, and those who survived are unlikely to join him after such a defeat, so he's got to search for a new support base. He can't simply abandon his pureblood supremacist propaganda, lest he be seen as a turncoat and, again, unlikely to sway followers."

I get that. I think. There was a lot of big words in a really small space, but I think I understand what she's saying. I agree… I might have come to the same conclusion (with smaller words) have I taken time to think about it myself. Snape seems to also support the explanation, and his opinion has a lot of weight… for me, at least. The bigoted idiots around us are mostly incapable of realising that views different than their own might even exist.

"He wants to use _creatures_?"

Of course he does. It wouldn't make sense not to use them… though I can't see how he could control a dragon for example, or a chimera.

"What sorts of creatures are housed in Whipsnade?" I ask, receiving several disapproving looks from people around the room, reminding me that I don't actually belong there and if I don't learn to keep my mouth shut, I'll get thrown out on my arse.

Again, I'd like to see them try. I'm not afraid of them, though I don't bother giving them as much as a glare in return. I watch the Ravenclaw-like lady, who seems delighted to have at least a single listener willing to use a brain-cell or two.

"You'd have to find records on that, _young_ man. But when I last visited, there was a couple of Welsh Greens and an entire swarm of little swamp dragons. Cute most of the time, but in battle they might cause Bedlam," she sounds a bit too cheerful about that, but considering that it seems hilarious to Snape, too, I refrain from calling her out on it.

I – and a few others – nod thoughtfully. I've seen pictures of swamp dragons, since Hagrid didn't manage to get one for his lesson, and I would hate to have to both go against such a creature and kill it.

"They have dozens of smaller creatures, mostly harmless. I've heard their only harpy died…"

"We need those records," Kingsley Shacklebolt interrupts. He's level-headed, I hand him that. Calm and clever. The Order needs more men like him, but they are woefully sparse…

"Can you secure a copy in your official capacity?" the standing lady asks him. He hesitantly nods.

"As soon as possible, please, Kingsley," Remus concludes, as if it was all we needed. I glare at him (covertly – fortunately no one pays attention to me either way). I'm not too good in strategy – I get slaughtered at chess by almost anyone – but even I know better than that.

Bill squeezes my shoulder, grounding me so that I don't blow up, and speaks in my stead, as it has been already shown that my ideas are not deemed worthy of being listened to.

"We need a map of the location – preferably blueprints – map of the surroundings, layout of Muggle and wizarding enclosures, which creatures are housed where, how many guards are there, security system…"

I lean over and whisper into Bill's ear, earning a glare from Fleur: "Photos."

"And it would be beneficial if you could get pictures of the sites," Bill adds.

Most of the room is stunned into silence. Snape is smirking at them, the Ravenclaw-like lady sits down with a hint of smugness about her, Remus is catching flies into his mouth, Bill sits as straight as a fence-pole with a very attractive lightning in his eyes, which Fleur totally misses because she's still glaring at me so hard. I struggle to keep my blank mask, thoroughly enjoying the situation.

x

Pictures are all nice and stuff, but I get a better idea. I catch Remus in the kitchen in the evening – I'm enjoying a glass of Sirius's (_my_ – he willed it to me) wine; he's sneaking in for a snack.

"Harry! You really shouldn't be drinking-"

Oh, spare me. I shouldn't be drinking, shouldn't be having sex, shouldn't be _killing_. Funny, how I'm being introduced to the adult world in the reverse order, compared to the teenagers around me. Either way, Remus has no right to bitch about it, and I cut him off.

"Want some?"

He sputters for a moment, and then categorically refuses, taking a breath to continue with his rant. I'd really rather he not.

"Remus, I was thinking about the Whipsnade action. Wouldn't it be practical to send some people to check out the site in person?" Of course it _would_ be, but I'm not supposed to tell our 'leaders' what to do, and this way at least it doesn't sound like I'm trying to. I hope.

"It might be…" Remus carefully concedes. I struggle to keep a grin off my face.

"I'd volunteer."

He scowls at me disapprovingly, pondering my suggestion. I know he sees the merit in it – after all, it _is_ the standard measure when preparing a counter-attack (or attack, or anything, really…), but I can clearly see that he's unhappy about me going to Zoo.

Isn't that just the height of irony? Whoever I have controlling my life seems to be adamant about not letting me have much of it. I promise to myself that if I get a chance to be free one day, I'll make it up to me.

"You cannot be seen there before the attack, Harry. The Death Eaters would suspect that we were warned…"

"Neither I, nor any known or suspected member of the Order, Remus," I reply coolly. That's obvious, isn't it? "I, and whoever goes with me, will be disguised."

He shakes his head.

"I'm sorry, Harry. It just isn't possible. When it's safe, I promise I'll take you there, alright?"

Apparently, he figured out a part of my motivation. That doesn't mean that I haven't intended to really look out and pay attention to the strategic side of things, but Remus simply can't bring himself to think of me as a soldier. He still sees his best friend's kid, at times perhaps his student, and for all that he has me call him Remus, I doubt he would ever accept me as an equal.

It doesn't really hurt, thanks goodness. I'm alright with it. But… Bloody… Does Remus _have_ to be so smart? He's way too difficult to manipulate. I wish I'd gone to Slytherin when I had the chance…

I take the wine, having all of the bottle to myself, since Remus is such a proper example of integrity that he wouldn't drink alcohol where I can see him, and walk out of the room. He tries to call me back and force me to leave the wine there, but it's mine and I don't hesitate to Silence him so that he would leave me alone.

Gods, I wish Fleur would choke to death on her lipstick and Bill would come shag me tonight.


	7. Warm Welcomes

A/N: Had a spot of trouble with my notebook (a virus:-/), but fortunately all the important files were recovered. Here's another chapter pf _Metamorphosis_ (the next instalment of _Pantogogue_ will be updated in a few days), and I'm afraid half of you will want to kill me, so… let's get it over with.  
Brynn

x

Warm Welcomes 

x

I suspect Remus is wary of me trying something, because I'm carted off to Hogwarts on Monday morning, 2nd of December, and informed that I'm to attend the afternoon classes. At least they had the courtesy to excuse my lack of homework. I'm unlucky that Potions aren't, as is traditional, in the morning, but hopefully Snape won't get off on insulting me and generally being the pain in the collective Gryffindor ass.

The lack of welcome is caused by everyone being in class, though Dumbledore was _kind_ enough to send McAllister to make sure that I don't make a repeat of my after-Ministry performance from last year after I floo into his unsupervised office. I must say, I'm tempted nevertheless.

I track up to the tower, dislodge the stack of textbooks they brought for me to Grimmauld Place, and then unload the Shrunk volumes (which I borrowed from Bill or nicked from the Black library) from my pockets. There's quite a lot of them, but I'd rather Hermione didn't get her fingers on them. A few are nastier than what her humanist mindset tolerates.

I lack one particular book, which I need before I can even un-Shrink these, and that leads me down to the library. It's empty. My wild guess is that Pince is holed up with Trelawney, sharing sherry. I don't really mind, because this way the book I need is free for me to take, and since it's not in the Restricted section, I am fairly certain that the loan won't be questioned by authorities, as long as I _return_ it.

x

"I can't believe Professor Flitwick thought I would let you cheat. I can't believe you even attempted! You're just as bad as-"

"Harry!"

I turn from my plate and quirk a half-hearted grin at Ron, who walks alongside an irate Hermione towards our usual spots at the Gryffindor table. He grins back, and moves to nudge her, but she ignores him.

"No way! Harry doesn't cheat, Ron! You should follow his example. You're as bad as Lavender."

Ron shrugs at me, as if to say he tried. I shrug back.

"Harry!" an excited squeal comes from behind them and Ginny bounds down the aisle, running full speed at me.

"Harry?" Hermione looks around, bemused, shaking her head as if everyone has gone mad.

"Hi," I say, receiving an armful of an over-exuberant redhead.

"Hi, mate," Ron replies sedately, sitting on the bench next to me.

"Harry!" Hermione finally catches up. "How are you? Where have you been? When did you come back? What-"

Ron clamps a hand over her mouth and I nod to him in silent thanks, since my mouth is currently full of chicken soup. Hogwarts food is good. I guess I've gotten so used to it that I forgot to appreciate it.

I glance over to the door, just in time to meet Draco's eyes. He gives me a beatific smile, and strides straight to us, completely ignoring the fact that he should be going to the opposite side of the room to Slytherin table. We can always spare him a spot, that's not a problem. I prod Ginny to move further to the right, so that the place next to me frees. She grumbles, but does so, allowing Draco to slip in between us. We both turn halfway, and – quite suddenly- he's got his arms around me, clutching me in a death grip.

"I was so scared…" he whispers in my ear. His voice trembles; all Malfoy dignity is suspended for that one moment of a truth too harsh for me to accept.

"You shouldn't be," I reply under my breath. "One day, I won't come back."

The arms tighten yet more. Inside my head I scream at the universe for doing this to me. How can I die with no regrets, when Draco Malfoy loves me?

x

After the afternoon classes, which I attend but spend being bored out of my mind, I finally give in to my friends' badgering and we troop up to the Room of Requirement for a chat without the chance of some inquisitive soul eavesdropping. I tell them a pretty story about going out to Hogsmeade, meeting Bill and Charlie and escaping to Egypt for a vacation. Hermione disapproves rather vocally, but in the end is silenced by Ron, Draco and Ginny, who think it was a great achievement, the right thing to do, and overall victory for me, since I didn't get punished and even was allowed to do nothing in the classes until Christmas. She reacts to that by huffing and storming out of the room.

"Well… good for you mate," Ron says, but somehow can't make it sound believable. He knows I'm lying like there's no tomorrow, but lets it pass. We would die for each other, but we both understand that there's a rift between us that can't be bridged. Ron is aware that he doesn't understand me and therefore refuses to judge me and I'm grateful, probably more than he'll ever know. He stands up and goes to find Hermione, have a row about my behaviour and a round of make-up making out.

I miss Bill.

I look away from the door, which is once again closed, to the two people who remain in the room with me. Draco stands, gives me a hand-up, and we spend a couple of minutes in silent embrace, while Ginny looks on. She is the closest to Draco and to a point recognises that we have a bond (even though she's unaware of its specifics) and respects it.

"I knew you have not died…" Draco states, not minding Ginny in the least. "But you came so fucking close, Harry! I felt it! You didn't think I would eat that bullshit you spewed for the last half-hour, did you?!"

I did not.

"There are things worth dying for," I reply simply. Draco pushes my bangs out of my face, noticing that they have lengthened. I have never needed a haircut and I hazard a guess that were I to chop off the odd inch now it would grow back by tomorrow. My hair has a will on its own and does what it wants to do. I don't bother attempting to tame it anymore. Why it changed, I have again but guesses.

"You are different. Bad and good things happened to you, and you are not the same, Harry." I nod. Draco's very smart, when he chooses to engage himself. I have a nagging suspicion that he's actually smarter than Hermione, but woe betide me were I to ever say it out loud.

"You don't need glasses," Ginny supplies from the couch she's sprawled on. I nod again.

"I can't keep up with you anymore. You've gone and left us all behind."

I shake my head. I am not ahead of anyone. I'm merely trying to survive now – Merlin knows I was so close to giving up that goal – and, as ever, trying to kill Terrordemort. Whichever way the war will end, I won't be able to go back to what I was like before it started. Ron, Hermione, Ginny and Draco won't need someone like that. They have each other, I made sure they would have each other, they can depend on themselves. They'll be strong.

And I'll be free, one way or another.

"Harry… if you kill him and come back alive… don't disappear. Please."

Oh, Draco. Even if I managed to kill Tom and come back alive… there won't be much of me left to salvage. I won't be the Harry Potter you have learnt to love. That Harry Potter is already dead… You do his legacy proud.

"Draco, I am so very glad that I won't be meeting you out there."

The corners of his mouth turn downward; he clenches his teeth, suppressing tears.

"Fuck you!" He backhands me, as hard as he can, and storms out of the room. I hate myself for making him cry. He's tough, though; I'm not afraid of breaking him. In the end, he'll come out on top of things, he'll build the war-devastated wizarding world anew, and he'll be the one people will look up to. He'll be the real saviour, and if I live to witness it… it just might turn out to be my greatest accomplishment.

"He loves you, you know?" Ginny ventures after a while of silence. I unfreeze, lick coppery blood from my lips, and sit down on the sofa, pushing her legs out of the way.

"I know."

She sits up and cards her fingers through my hair. I stare at my hands folded in my lap.

"He's not really mad at you; he knows what you're fighting for and why you chose the way you did… He just hates that it's required of you."

I know that, too. Ginny's hands slip over my shoulders. She leans over, brushes my hair aside much like Draco did, and scrutinises the already forming bruise on my cheek.

"I love you too, you know?"

I sigh. I know that too but, while Draco's love is sort-of returned, Ginny's remains one-sided. In a different timeline, where Voldemort isn't an insane psychopath bent on shortening my life span, Ginny and I could have been a couple. But here she's too innocent, too good and Light and _alive_ to be spoilt by me. I couldn't even seduce Remus, despite all his stupid obstinacy and hung-up ignorance; there's no way in Hell I'd touch something as precious as Ginny.

I kiss her brow and ward her off when she tries to shift closer to me.

"It's hard to explain…"

"You don't have to," she replies with a soft smile. I find myself smiling back, invigorated by the live vision of what I'm ultimately fighting for. With a lot of effort and suffering from me, she (and hundreds of others) may stay so happy, so _normal_ all of their lives. She still deserves an explanation, though.

"I…"

"There's someone." I nod, thankful for the help. It's not that easy, really. There's Bill, and Charlie, and Snape-slash-Severus, who is by far the most confusing of the three.

"I don't love them – really, I don't. It's just… I'm grateful to them, and… if I'm going to kill Tom the hard way, I'm going to need them." I'm so lucky the English grammar allows the use of 'they' for both one person and multiple people. I'm so lucky there are so many helping me… I'm lucky Ginny really tries to comprehend, and although she cannot _truly_, she respects my decision without any feelings of resentment embittering either of us.

x

Hermione spends Tuesday and Wednesday mad at me. Ron stays with her, attempting damage control, but actually alternating between watching her study and snogging her. Draco avoids me; the one time we coincidentally meet in a hallway his eyes well and he quickly turns a corner, getting away as fast as he can. Ginny talks to me, as do other Gryffindors and old members of the DA, and generally anyone bold enough to bother the Boy Who Lived. I try to be patient with them, but as I'm disturbed from reading the book I've borrowed from the library – Munimentum Mei – for the twenty-sixth time, I scare the throng around me out of their wits and, apparently, into alerting the entire school to my temper. I can't say that I mind. At least they leave me alone.

x

I'm not getting any information from anyone, and when Thursday evening comes with no one telling me a thing I know that the Order doesn't intend to include me. It's not that I enjoy fighting, but, objectively, having me there could save lives. They're all idiots, stuck-up prejudiced patronising blind morons.

I strap on the scabbard with the saif, put on an overcoat, cast a Silencer on myself, and walk out. I don't get far – relatively speaking. Outside the Entrance Hall I happen upon an unfamiliar owl, who carries a thin slip of parchment in her talons. She looks anguished, and I have a nasty feeling that she was trying to reach me for quite some time.

There is a set of Apparition co-ordinates, and the initials SS. Since there is only one moderately sane person in the world who would believe that I would without questioning trust a near blank note from anyone with initials SS (not to speak about the lack of people with inkling about me being able to Apparate), I dare say it's fairly safe. I'm not going into this without caution either.

I pretty much run all the way down to the gates and slip out – it's much easier than slip in these days. The gate was made One-way Pervious to ascertain that help could come without hindrance if there was an attack on Hogsmeade. I'm quite sure, though, that it was so adamantly insisted upon to ensure that the students could escape if Hogwarts was infiltrated and overtaken.

Anyway, once I'm past the Anti-Apparition ward, I Disapparate.

x

The place is reminiscent of London Zoo in the way one such attraction resembles other. There are enclosures and cages, most of them darkened and quiet. The inhabiting animals – I landed in the Muggle section – are mostly asleep and only make random little noises here and there.

Then, almost immediately upon my arrival, the battle breaks out. It's happening out of my direct sight; I see the night-sky flashing with variety of colours, people yelling and, occasionally, screaming. I am reasonably sure that Voldemort is after the swamp dragons.

I am also reasonably sure that I could be more of use in a different part of the Zoo, and in different capacity. I hate Remus right now, not truly hate, but in that temporary way that makes you want to punch someone's face, although not kill them. I should have seen the plans, I should have known the place. I only have a vague idea about where I should go, gotten from the board with directions for the visitors. To say that the map is imprecise and incomplete is a massive understatement.

I must go alone. That's the point. They will never get it, never understand that only I – the Boy Who Lived – will survive such confrontation, no matter how large an army will be dispatched with me. No one else can maintain a semi-permeable personal ward in fight; no one else stands the chance against the combined forces of several Death Eaters and Voldemort (should he be present here today, which I doubt very much for various reasons) on their own turf. This isn't shooting fliers before they reach the ramparts, or taking down invaders one by one. It isn't going to be a battle where I am going – it's going to be me against them.

There are Anti-Portkey and Anti-Apparition wards installed over the entire area, therefore they must be leaving by foot, at least to a point. That point is what I'm looking for. I know that Voldemort counted on me when drafting his plan, and therefore the search won't be easy.

It's irritating that the only one who doesn't underestimate me is the only one I would like to. I rub my wrists as I skulk through the shadows cast by odd trees and heaps of constructional material. Lines of silvery white on the grass indicate where new enclosures are to be built.

The sounds of the battle gradually die out; whatever Voldemort wished to achieve here, he's managed it already. The Order was too late to save the dragon-handlers, but there are still a few Death Eaters around here. Voldemort's watches… and those who consider the chaotic attempts to calm and contain the escaped Welsh Greens entertaining. The two angry and frightened lizards have charged through the metallic barrier when the charms on it were disturbed by wayward spells.

The observers must be somewhere with a view of the preserve – on the hillside.

x

The uphill lawn with a bush here and there, sparse few trees and heaps of long things that look to me like metals (I reckon it's what they build cages for magical creatures of), is as hostile as the graveyard of Little Hangleton, though considerably less creepy.

The Death Eaters are there alright. I blast the nearest pile of metals into a cloud of high-velocity shrapnel, and shred those of them who are not quick enough to Apparate or put up a shield (and those whose shields are not strong enough) into pieces of meat. The ground looks like Hogwarts after the siege, just more… _minced_.

I'm quite good, if I say so. From eleven Death Eaters I've made four, and one doesn't count, because he was in the opposite direction from the spell. I can take on four.

Better yet, I can take on three – one started retching upon the sight of (most likely) _her_ former companions. An obvious newbie. I take her down with a Stunner (I'm not so callous at this point in time as to discount the possibility that she is yet to be initiated, and therefore salvageable, however improbable it might be).

Two of them, used to seeing blood, engage me in a duel – is it even called duel when there's three of us casting? – and the third one sneaks behind me. I know about him and am not worried, though he doesn't know that.

I fell one of those in front of me and he looses his mask in the process. The hair on my arms rises as I recognise the face, short cropped vivid red hair, blue eyes, horn-rimmed spectacles. In my shock I'm too slow to shield against the next attack, and a barrage of hexes shatters against my personal ward. The fireworks almost blind my left eye, and most certainly do blind the second Death Eater. I use the opportunity, levitate a sharp piece of metal and lodge it in their throat. They are dead within seconds, but I don't watch their sinking. I ignore the gurgling and rattling sounds, and approach Percy.

He's already dead. His left sleeve has bunched up as he grasped on the grass in spasm, and reveals the edge of a black tattoo on his forearm. His face is scrunched up in hatred, teeth bared, eyes shut. I don't know why he died – the curses I was shooting were fatal, but not instantly. Then I notice a trickle of green foam oozing from the corner of his mouth.

"Fuck…" a way too familiar voice says succinctly. Profanities from Bill are rare, but this situation sure deserves one. If anyone had to come and see this scene, it never should have been a Weasley. They're going to hate me now.

But Bill doesn't sound angry. He comes closer. In the starlight he's pale… I don't doubt that he would look just as pale, or maybe grey, in daylight.

"I thought you weren't here," he says slowly, keeping his eyes trained on the corpse of his brother. "Why didn't you come with us?"

"Because nobody bothered to tell me anything," I growl. This is definitely not the time to harp, but I'm mad at myself and everyone from the Order. It's not Bill's fault, but he could have changed it. Just like I could have saved Sirius… Yeah, it's not his fault.

"I'm sorry."

A rustle behind me alerts me to the Death Eater who has been trying to get there for a while. I've totally forgotten about him… Gods, he could have attacked Bill! I surreptitiously move so that I stand between the bugger and Bill.

"Remus told me he briefed you…"

I'm getting mightily annoyed at Remus. Maybe it's time to distance myself from the Order. I'm better as a one-man unit either way.

"Remus is a lying meddling back-stabbing…" I cut myself off before I say something that should remain confined to the recesses of my mind. Bill closes his eyes, straightens, and then opens them with resolve.

"Evanesco."

Percy's body disappears. I agree with Bill's decision. It's better that Percy goes missing and stays like that forever, than if he was to become a dead Death Eater. It would break Mrs Weasley's heart.

Bill turns to face me, with an overwhelming sadness in his eyes, something that Charlie never could convey with a simple look.

"Harry-" the sadness is all of sudden replaced with fear. "Look out!"

He's spotted the sneaky toady of Terrordemort's. I shake my head, unafraid. The ward stops anything short of an Unforgivable.

"Abbrevo!"

But Bill doesn't know about the ward. He hugs me and spins us around, placing himself into the path of the curse.

It all happens too quickly; I can't do anything. Bill's so much stronger than I… There's no way I can stop him.

When the light hits him, he staggers forwards and lets go of me.

"Vorax!" I cast over his shoulder. The Death Eater is blasted into pieces, not fast enough to shield. Even if he did shield, it wouldn't help him.

Bill gulps.

There's something awfully wrong. His eyes are wide, surprised, and he lets out a quiet gasp, which is the only indication that he's in pain. He starts falling; I catch him, eliciting another gasp, and lower him on the ground.

The front of his robes stains red… the blotch grows rapidly. I don't understand. I don't _want_ to understand.

"No…" I don't know what I thought the denial would achieve. Madam Pomfrey can't help him now. Gods, team of the best healers there are can't help him.

"You're going to be alright," he says quietly.

"It shouldn't be _you_ consoling _me_…" I whisper. He smiles. It's a weak expression, but there is nothing shallow or untruthful about it. He's so incredibly strong… he knows he's dying, and he's at peace with it – what kind of things must a man younger than thirty have seen to not object to dying?

He reaches up and wipes a tear I haven't noticed up till now.

"Don't cry, Effervescence."

It's perhaps the wrong thing to do but, knowing that this is my last chance and feeling that I need it, I touch my lips to his. He responds, slowly, as his life leaks out of him and soaks into the ground and he grows weaker… I'm losing him, and I can't think of anything to say to him. No heartfelt goodbye, no last statement, no proclamation of eternal (or even temporary) love. It should have been Fleur here, not me…

…or maybe it's best the way it is. I taste his blood, which was about the last of his flavours I yet had to experience. Then he stops responding, and I pull back. Our eyes meet, and the light in his is dimming. He grasps my hand with surprising force… so he's not so at peace, after all. That silent pleading breaks something inside me; I want him to stay with me, and he wants to stay with me, too. He breathes out for the last time, but doesn't close his eyes, looking at me until the very, very end, as long as he possibly can.

Hard, silent sobs rack my body and I lean forward, resting my forehead on Bill's chest that has already ceded bleeding. He's gone. He's gone… he's…

"I'll kill him, War. I'll kill him for _you_."

Magic seals the Oath with a flash of anti-light. I stroke long blood-soaked strands, revelling in the feeling of the liquid coating my fingers. I've got blood on my hands… blood on my hands… a stigma. I am Marked.

I rapidly stand up. My entire body quivers. Casting charms on Bill's… _on Bill_ feels like desecrating, but there is no way I could physically lift him, and I'm sure as Hell not waiting here for someone to come and butt in. I grit my teeth and do a Featherlight Charm, non-verbally, so that I can pretend I did not, and lift him into my arms. I have kissed this man, I have traced all the edges and planes of this body, I've had him inside me. And now he's destroyed. I can't begin to describe the enormity of this crime.

I walk towards the perimeter of the wards to the rhythm of a twisted mantra thrumming in my ears: "The Dark Lord approaches… thrice defied him… the seventh month dies… Mark him as his equal… he will have power… must die… neither can live… dies…"


	8. Son of Nefertum

A/N: Yes, it is indeed one speedy update for those of you, who actually read _Metamorphosis_. After _Son of Nefertum_, there is just one last chapter to go, so stay tuned!  
Brynn

x

Son of Nefertum 

x

I hear a song sung by a single voice, but there are no words in it. It's not human, and not for people, but I know who calls the scattered dragons to him. I go on, unafraid of the lizards, unafraid of the singer.

Safe paths in the artificial swamp are marked by glowing symbols. I take care with every step, walking on, holding Bill close to me. Little dragons scuttle out of the brushwood, all running or flying towards the same melody. Leathery wings and tails hit my legs now and then, but no sign of enmity comes from these creatures. They are like children playing tag, only with a cloud of will-o-wisps dancing among them.

I find Charlie in the centre of a congregation, in the middle of the swamp that was made much larger than what could geographically fit into the area designated for it. He kneels in mud. I have a brief flashback to Halloween, when it was me on the soaked earth and Charlie… _and Bill_… coming for me… Less than three weeks were enough to shatter our worlds, rebuild them and shatter them again.

Tendons move under the skin of Charlie's back; it looks like a nest of snakes, and must hurt fiercely. One day, sooner rather than later in the light of Bill's death, Charlie's change will go a step further and he won't come back. I try to imagine him with wings, huge magnificent glittering green appendages growing out of his back, where the snaking tendons come to rest.

He looks over his shoulder and up into my face.

I feel numb, just waiting for the Earth to crash into the Sun. I was rebuilt separate of Bill, and I'm still standing, but I have been far from ready to lose him. The shock has rendered me cold, unfeeling, as though I'm cut off from my heart, but I can feel it beating, pumping hot red blood, like that on my fingers, and know that, once I allow myself to feel, it's going to be painful.

Charlie and Bill and I remain as carved from marble. We stand unmoving, three pale statues as an illustration to Metamorphosis, waiting for time to start again.

x

I let Charlie Apparate us to Grimmauld Place for I am unwilling to meet any other Order members today. In my numb, despair-driven state, I would not act rationally – I might kill for the smallest offence.

Abandoning Bill in that house is incredibly hard. I have to forcefully pry myself off him, separate us, and then I just stand there and can't tear my eyes from his still form. Charlie lowers Bill's eyelids, hiding the blue that glitters with emptiness. He does not cry on the outside, but inside he is worse off than I am. I have to leave him here, alone (with Bill), so that he can scream and rave, or get drunk, or…

…do whatever dragons do when their hearts bleed.

I see myself back to Hogwarts, coming through the Shrieking Shack. The corridor under it is now riddled with lethal traps, password-protected on both ends, and guarded by a ghost. Tonight the duty's fallen on the Bloody Baron, who, I find, has instructions from Snape to let me pass.

Divesting myself of things seems more of a chore than ever before. I set aside my wand, the saif I never got to use, kick off my shoes and fail to undo the fastening of my overcoat when it gets stuck, so I give up on it. By the time I get to bed, I feel dead myself.

Was really all we've achieved in Egypt for naught?

x

"Harry! Harry!" I wake up to Ron shaking me. It's painful, but I can't bring myself to care, and definitely not to tell him, especially after I've glimpsed his face. He's distraught. They've been told.

"Ron…"

My voice is hoarse, as though I've been screaming. I don't remember screaming, but I might have had a nightmare I don't recall… As though the nightmare of yesterday night wasn't enough.

Ron lets go of me and I have to catch myself on one of the bedposts; otherwise I would have fallen back onto the pillow. I'm going to have bruises on my upper arms.

"B-bill's… Bill is…" Ron chokes, unable to say it out loud.

Dead. I know. I probably look a fright, and Ron's just beginning to take in my appearance. I'm dirty. My clothes are stained with brown and brown-red blotches, my hair is full of mud, my sweat dried all over my body and my forehead and hands… my hands… Bill's blood.

I stare at my palms and then look up, eerily blank. Ron is gaping at me in horror.

"Y-you knew… You…" He sneers through tears. It's the ugliest expression I've ever seen him wearing. "You knew and didn't tell me!"

He raises his hand to punch me, but when I don't react at all, he freezes in that position. Then he sags, reaches out and pulls me into a hug. He hangs onto me; I remain stiff and motionless in his arms. Another person I cared for is gone because of me. My flippancy and ignorance murdered yet again.

Strange, how I can kill men and women with my hands and magic without remorse, but I just can't deal with this.

"Ron?"

Hermione's voice is very quiet. She stands by the door and holds Ginny's hand in hers. Ginny herself has her hair down, building a barrier between the world and her but, despite being unable to see her face, I can tell she doesn't cry. She's a little like Charlie in this; soundlessly screaming inside her head. I hate it. Little girls should cry aloud.

"Harry?" Ron asks when he notices that I have yet to make any noise or movement since the whisper of his name. I don't feel like it. I want to lie back down and wait until Bill comes to wake me up like he did it Egypt, dressed in a long white tunic, like a red-haired angel… William ibn Nefertum. Blessed by the Scarab God of Dawn.

"Harry, come here." Hermione sits on the side of my bed and stretches out a hand.

I look at her, blink, and look away. The canopy is red. Red like blood. Ginny sits next to Hermione – I feel the mattress dip – and pulls out her wand.

"Scourgify."

The spell washes over me and takes away all the dirt, all the sweat and grime and mud and blood… I look at my palms.

They are clean.

I expect another something inside me to break, but it doesn't happen. Everything is coming back into focus, everything makes sense again. The memory of Egypt becomes vivid in my mind, and I take a deep breath of the dormitory air in vain hope that I would smell incense. It's not here, but Bill was correct, straight until the very end.

I'm going to be alright.

"Come 'ere," I say like Hermione did a moment ago – my voice breaks just a little – and open my arms. Ron and Ginny cuddle up to me, each claiming one side, and both let themselves cry. They twin sobs synchronise after a moment, and I relax slightly. I don't have tears for Bill and Hermione didn't know him enough to be more than vaguely sad about his death.

I wish someone else took my place. I am not sanguine – not _humane_ – enough to be able to provide anything but a bony chest to lean against. Hermione pets them and mumbles something incomprehensible, but I feel excluded. Their feelings are so very different from mine… I wish to be alone. I wish it was Draco here in my place.

I endure it for fifteen or twenty minutes, continually growing weary both physically and mentally. In the end I gesture towards the bedside table and look at Hermione pleadingly. She complies, although I doubt that she knows my intentions, and passes me my wand. I spell all three of them asleep, even bother to re-arrange Ginny and Mione on my bed and levitate Ron over to his, so that they wouldn't wake up sore and stiff.

x

I'm halfway down to Slytherin, looking for Draco, when I happen upon a familiar face.

We meet on a staircase, one of those that don't detach themselves and move around but stay firmly built in. It's narrow, but we both walk slowly and thus avoid collision. Charlie reaches out to me, but I shrink backwards instinctively.

He frowns.

"Stop the guilt trip, Harry. You couldn't prevent him from living his life…" I relent, step forwards and he engulfs me in a brief but warm embrace. Those perfect hands stroke my back and then let go, which I appreciate, because his knapsack has been attempting to dig a hole through my ribs. "Would you even want to?"

I shake my head. Never. Bill was Bill such as he was – to prevent him from making his choices, to force him to conform to someone else's will would mean destroying that which made him so unique – which made him Bill. The death was undesired, but, maybe, in a strange tragic way, necessary. I cannot see all ends, but in Egypt I've learnt again how to hope; I want to believe that there is enough love, goodness, beauty, and a happy end for enough people to make up for our sacrifices.

"You have to come to the memorial service, Harry. It's on Saturday at seven on the High Chiltern Meadow."

I stare into his blue, pained eyes, trying to digest the invitation. It hasn't crossed my mind before… I suppose it should have, but it seems inconsequential compared to the reality of the death itself. But… it should bring closure, shouldn't it?

I think I'm glad to be invited. Just hope that they won't make it a huge ceremony; Bill wouldn't have appreciated that. Then again, if Charlie's the one in charge, there's no worry.

"Why so late?"

I'm aware that the question seems off topic, but I am genuinely interested.

"Early, Harry. Seven in the morning. Usually it's done in the afternoon, but there are circumstances…

"Blessed by Khepri, right?"

He nods, surprised that I made the conjecture. I can hardly forget – having been gifted by the same entity myself.

"Khepri is the same as Nefertum, the God of Dawn. That's why seven in the morning, right? That's dawn."

He nods again. We both fall silent. I want to go fetch Draco, but I don't want to part from Charlie just yet. We could go together, but he must have things to do (it's hardly believable that he would have come only to tell me the date and place of the memorial service).

"I came to collect Ron and Ginny," he informs me. "Mum's in a state and dad can't leave her alone…" Gods… how _reduced_ is the family suddenly. Because they took me in… or is it? I can't claim responsibility for their alliances, or for Percy's. I'm just a focus, and Voldemort's minions are attracted to me like moths to a flame.

"I've brought something for you," he adds surreptitiously, glancing around and upwards to make sure nobody watches. There's a portrait on the landing, but it's currently empty of residents. Charlie opens his knapsack. It must have magically enhanced cubage, because he pulls the black suitcase out of it.

"It's not officially written anywhere, but Bill wanted you to have them," he says. I hesitate less than a second. Yes, Bill wanted to give them to me, and I suspect that many of the books would have ended in my ownership even if he had remained alive. I take the luggage and hug it close, feeling a strange, not physical, sensation of warmth coming from it.

"It's… thanks." I feel a weak but happy smile forming. It might not be appropriate, but I can't help it.

"It's not so much," Charlie protests. "He left lots of things, a small treasure, actually, to the rest of us."

He doesn't understand. I don't care about the entire heritage from Sirius as much as I care about this suitcase and its contents.

"No, I… This is…"

Words fail me, and he finally sees what I'm trying to convey. He smiles back and gently pets my hair.

"Exactly what you would have wanted," he finishes for me. "I know it and Bill knew it. Hence…" He gestures to the object I'm hugging.

"Thanks," I say simply.

"Ron and Ginny are in the dorms?"

"Yeah. In our dorm, actually. I… spelled them asleep," I confess. Charlie sighs, but doesn't berate me. He has an inkling of how hard this situation is on me – perhaps not as emotional as it is to the surviving siblings, but much more confusing. I was not exactly sane three weeks ago, and right now I feel like I'm dancing on the edge of rationality.

"I'm taking them to Headquarters. We'll see you tomorrow, Harry."

There's no sense in going to find Draco anymore. Still, I continue downstairs, slinking through the shadows of the dungeons in the faux eternal night of Hogwarts underground. The Slytherins are at breakfast; it's clearly recognisable by the lack of children roaming these dank corridors. I avoid detection and manage to get to Snape's office unnoticed. I murmur the password, get inside and settle down to wait for the man to drop in before class.


	9. Effervescence

A/N: As promised, this is the last chapter of Metamorphosis. Enjoy and review.

Brynn

x

Effervescence 

x

Tomorrow is Saturday. I wake up at half past five, dress in my uniform sans robe and dig up the jacket I stole from the guy I killed in Egypt. After a while of deliberation I take the saif, too.

I trek down to Snape's quarters. The hallways are just as empty as they were during the summer, and I welcome it just as much as I did back then. Not having bothered with a Silencer today – after all, I can hardly be prosecuted for being out of bounds – my heels make a rhythmic clicking sound. I'm not used to it, but it provides me with a background sound while I'm trying to convince myself that this is real.

I'm going to Bill's funeral today.

The door to Snape's office is as uninviting as ever, but today I see all the details, little cracks in the wood, the way the brass of the knob is furred with grime and potions residue from students' hands… it's suddenly not obscured by the general impression.

I lift my hand to knock, but Snape opens the door before I can and ushers me inside. The same thing happens there; I scrutinise the lines of his face, the way the ends of his hair curl slightly, though with oil rather than keratin, the tiny scar in the corner of his mouth I've never noticed that makes it seem as though he was perpetually sneering. He does so often, but definitely not always… not now.

He, of course, wears black, but it's the second time ever I see him in velvet. The shine of the cloak makes his skin less sallow, simply pale. He has the Prince coat of arms embroidered on his chest.

"Come stand here," he beckons me closer to a shining glass ball. My guess is he uses it when marking essays to not ruin his eyes. Firelight definitely isn't conductive to good eyesight. When I don't step up quickly enough, the ball swings and comes closer to me, hanging in the mid-air.

Snape aims his wand at my chest. I grit my teeth, but remain where I am, unmoving. I trust this man, in certain things more than I trust either of the Weasleys. I don't think he would curse me…

Whatever charm he uses links the tip of his wand to the black velvet covering my breastbone. It takes longer to cast than anything (save wards) I have encountered before, and the ray changes colours during the process – grey, white, red, white, yellow, white.

"Better," he mutters when it's finally done. I conjure a mirror floating in front of me, and survey the result. There is a grey blazon with three white flowers and a helmet on the background of red and white vines, and a tiny yellow dragon at the top.

"What…"

"It's the Potter crest," he explains tonelessly. I know he's not very happy about me being a Potter, but we need each other and the bitterness he feels is not directed at me. "Merlin knows I have seen it often enough to remember every detail." I figure my father would have flaunted it wherever he went. Well, if Snape can look at it without cursing someone or attempting suicide… I'm glad I get to wear it today.

"Could you please-"

"What?"

I brace myself.

"Do the Black crest also?"

He hesitates. I know he hated Sirius even more than he hated James, but there were other Blacks he knew, too… he must have mixed feelings about it. Perhaps he even despises that it is me who inherited the entire estate, _plus_ the name. I don't use it, but it doesn't change the fact that I _am_ Lord Black. I wonder why he never used it to get at me, like he did it to Draco.

"Fine," he growls, and adorns the black jacket with a couple of dogs that guard a crest-shaped black patch under the colourful monstrosity. It takes less time to create, even though he doesn't scamp. I don't think he ever scamps. It's Snape.

"Ready?" he asks. It can't be later than quarter past six, but I can't tell because clocks have yet to come into fashion with wizards and he doesn't keep one (after all, we have spells that are more accurate than any clock).

"Aren't we going to be early?"

"Better early than late, Mr Potter," he says. He passes around me, clasping my shoulder for a moment in an astonishing display of compassion, and leads me out of the room. "Closer to seven we risk being intercepted," he clarifies along the way. "Neither of us has bothered to seek the Headmaster's approval for this excursion and while he is, undoubtedly, going to be there, I would rather he found out about our attendance in front of witnesses and too late to do anything about it.

I nod, since there is nothing I can say to that. We fear Dumbledore's manipulations so much… almost as much as Voldemort's. Such irony.

x

High Chiltern Meadow is not empty when we Apparate in. Charlie sits on the dewy grass, uncaring about the wetness and cold, staring to the East, waiting for the Sun to rise. Next to him is a three-feet high flat piece of stone with a bed of layered wood atop it.

Charlie notices the cracks and lifts his head to look at us. We communicate with a look and I walk over to him for a moment. I pet his hair like he did mine yesterday and lean down to kiss his crown.

"Thank you, Peace," I whisper to him. I don't even know myself what I am thanking for, but he accepts it and grasps my hands. They are much warmer than his this time; he must have been here for a long while.

"I'm glad you came."

"I couldn't have stayed away. Not if they forbid me, not if they Stunned me, bound me, broke my legs…"

I hear Snape gasp and realise that I said the last sentence loudly and with more passion than anyone but Charlie could understand.

"We'll be standing on the other side unless you need us," I inform him. He points me to a spot that is a bit up the slope but still close enough so that we'll feel like we're part of the service. Snape and I go there and stand in the darkness, waiting. I, like Charlie, face the East; under my breath I recite the greeting from the English translation of Wadi Biban el-Muluk that is resting in Snape's quarters among dozens of other books.

"O blinding light!  
In face of Ra  
We close our eyes  
And pray

You end the night  
O Sun! O Ra!  
So blinding comes  
The day…"

x

A smaller part of the slowly gathering crowd forms a line leading to the pyre. Everyone wears black; in the soft pre-dawn glow of the eastern horizon they are little more than walking faces and hands and, in the cases of the Dealacours mostly, hair. Fawkes deposits Bill on the wooden cot and for a glorious second he is bathed in red light, looking almost alive, but not quite so.

The line, with me on its tail, moves, everyone crying, whispering, or simply saying something small but positive to the dead, pretending (in many instances also believing) that he can hear.

Fleur speaks loudly, choking in the middle of the short message: "You gave me your 'eart… and took mine."

Women are sniffing, commiserating with the girl. Hardly anyone listens to Charlie, who has too many things to say, but limits himself to the absolute basics: "You tried to understand me. You stood up for me, even when I was wrong, so that I could figure it out and make up for it. You knew when I doubted myself, and supported me no matter who I chose to be."

Next are the twins, walking together, but speaking separately.

"You made me realise that I was unique."

"And helped me feel good about it."

Ron follows on their heels, dragging an apathetic Ginny by her hand.

"You explained to me that I should protect those weaker than myself and help those stronger remain strong. And taught me to play chess." I have to suppress a smile. It would not do to be caught cheerful – I cannot expect tolerance for such seemingly heartless behaviour here. This is not a battle, and I am not… well, I _am_ the boy who lived, here, just not in the Boy Who Lived.

"You showed me how to fight my fears and how to stand up for myself," Ginny says clearly, for a moment maintaining a serene expression before it fades and she's dragged away by her brother.

A couple says something in an unfamiliar language and then it's my turn. A few people are eyeing me strangely; I realise that they don't recognise me. I wear an outlandish jacket, a military uniform no less, embroidered with crests that are less than visible in the darkness and have been out of cognizance for fifteen years.

"You taught me tenderness," I say simply and move back to where I've left Snape, who had nothing to say.

_War taught me tenderness_. There's so much wrong with that. Nevertheless, it's true, in both ways the statement could be understood. I see it now, in hindsight. The nickname was fitting. Bill was always fighting, against Darkness and ancient curses on the outside, against different Darkness and himself on the inside. I watch the people come and go, some offering a thank-you to the dead, some not.

Bill _is_ War. Just as Charlie is Peace, and I am Effervescence, bloody huge mouthful that it is.

x

Bill lies on the wooden bed, with many more mourners than I anticipated surrounding him. Apparently Fleur found out about Charlie's plans and made her own. Her family stands there in the second row, right behind the four youngest distraught Weasley siblings. The twins, while not crying, are looking more sombre than ever as the first ray of the new day hits the pyre and the pre-set spell sets it on fire.

The strained silence finally breaks. I watch the familiar profile as it disappears and absently wonder why the wizards maintain such morbid traditions. That man meant a lot to me, and he's disappearing in front of my eyes, layer after layer, as the heat destroys the material part of the person who has been destroyed on Thursday in my presence.

I did not love Bill, and perhaps that makes it all the worse. If I had loved him, truly and all-consumingly, I could offer him myself, a corner inside me, the rest of my life to be spent with him and for him. But it's not my place.

Fleur breaks into racking sobs, her silver, un-fragile beauty marred by a grimace of (what is to me overly dramatic) grief. She wails loudly, echoed by quieter, more private in their crying, members of family. To me this play-act, the epilogue of the Renaissance tragedy, is the ultimate hypocrisy. Fleur did not love Bill. She didn't even know him.

I survey the rows of mourners; all grim, some crying, some quiet in reminiscence, some angry. Angry at the war, at Voldemort, at me, some probably even angry at Bill's useless, stupid heroism, which was the true culprit in this senseless murder. I watch blotched faces, glittering tears, welling eyes, hands gripped in fists or resting on shoulders in wordless offers of comfort. My sight slides over them, and I silently ask each and every one: "Did you love Bill? Did you even know him?"

Most of them fall short. Their sadness is not for the young man turning to ash in the flames, but for their ideals, illusions, their losses and fears and angers, and ultimately just for themselves. Some aren't even truly sad in the first place. This pretence is expected of them, thus they comply to avoid offending any of their compatriots.

They do offend me, but they have ever done so, and they ever will, and today it doesn't matter at all, because today is for Bill Weasley and I am just witnessing it, so that he will know that the Sun has risen, the wind is blowing and the stars shine. Because, of this crowd, assembled to show off themselves rather than show off Bill or his legacy, no one (except Charlie) will think to tell him those things – the things that would interest him most.

Charlie is different, though. Charlie knew Bill, knew him better than anyone and better than he knows himself. He stands in the second row, behind his stricken mother, offering silent support and yet somehow separated from his family. More separated than they would suspect, different in body, mind and soul. When I concentrate now, I can see through his Illusion. He is as beautiful as I remember him from Egypt – breeze-swept crimson hair with glints of copper, bright blue eyes and ashen skin, contrasting sharply and unnaturally with his heavy woollen black cloak. Charlie should never, ever wear black.

He stares at the pyre and his irises reflect it like a pair of carnations. Bill's red – blood-red – hair is lost to the fire. It has shrivelled to nothing with a wisp of poisonous black smoke and the Charms that isolate the burning corpse from the audience don't stop my brain from imagining the smell of scorched flesh as the flames eat away at the so suddenly naked head. Bill's red – blood-red – blood was soaked in by the Earth, greedy patron that it is, leaving a dry shell so susceptible to the blaze. But Bill's essence, blood-red essence of a man who loved and fought and died, a man who had _lived_, that remains in people who _knew_ him. It's like a mark, like a tiny tattoo of a dung beetle on the breastbone. He's ours to remember.

The wind picks up and I imagine flecks of grey, black and white flying into my eyes, nose and mouth. I open myself wider, because this is him, and even though I had not loved him, I did know him, and he wishes me to keep a piece of him. I shall. Not for me. Not to assuage my grief or fear or anger.

Just because Bill wishes it.

x

Last embers have burnt to ash and a wind that doesn't seem all that natural blows and sweeps them away. I barely notice my feet moving as I pace forward to the stone slab. I'm almost there when a ball of flame flies at me from the side and I just manage to dodge. It might have been less than responsible off me, but it seemed wrong to carry a ward during a magical ritual.

I raise a shield immediately, but the attack doesn't continue. I find myself facing Fleur in a _veela_-mode, or as far as her quarter-blood heritage lets her into it.

"You were not supposed to go zere!" She screams. "If you stayed…" In her fit, her French accent comes back strong, making her words almost incomprehensible. Unfortunately, only _almost_.

"Don't you dare blame Harry, you ignorant Xanthippe!" growls another not human voice. I recognise the eerie echo quality. "Had he not been there, more of us would have died."

Charlie elbows his way out of the huddle and approaches us. I'm not afraid of Fleur, not in the least, rather infuriated and embarrassed. Why does she hate me so much? She doesn't know what happened in Egypt and, frankly, I never did anything else to deserve such hatred. And, this time, I _know_ that Bill's death was not my fault, despite the fact that a line of reasoning that makes me guilty _does_ exist. It's _in_correct.

However, it seems that Fleur refuses to admit it.

"'ow can you defend 'im?" She whirls around and snarls at Charlie: "Bill was your brozzer-"

I see that her outburst hurts Charlie and it infuriates me far more than anything she could say to me. I reach for the saif, but Snape's hand on mine stops me.

"Yes, he was," Charlie tells Fleur calmly, with dignity that moves Heavens and Earth. "And I know that whatever happened out there, he laid his life for something he believed in with his whole heart." His eyes flick over to me and my throat tightens. Bill believed in _me_. I release the handle of the saif. "And no matter how much you scream, no matter how much you try to assign guilt, it _will not bring him back_."

"'e-" she points at me with her finger, "-probably killed Bill 'imself! 'e's a jealous little boy-"

My palms glow with magic struggling to get out, prove that it's horse-shit, prove that Fleur is just a liar and a whore and…

I straighten. Bill _believes_ in me. The glow subsides, and I detachedly watch as Charlie grips Fleur's pearl-adorned neck and lifts her in the air. She chokes but shuts up. Different wind picks up around Charlie and two bulges form on his back, visible even through the cloak. There is silence all around, mourners watching with round eyes as the fiancée of the deceased is close to being murdered by his brother. Only Fleur's parents stare at the ground, ashamed of their daughter's outburst, understanding of Charlie's and my fury.

"You blind egoistical bitch," I whisper, but in the soundlessness my voice carries. "If you suggest something like this ever again… if you even hint at it… I'll kill you without a second thought and never look back."

I scare great many people, but it strikes me that even delivering death-threats I don't sound so dead inside anymore. All thanks to Bill. All thanks to the man she accused me of murdering… I would have given my life for him. I would have killed for him. _He believes in me_.

"Monsieur Weezley," a blonde girl tugs at Charlie's cloak; I recognise her as Gabrielle Delacour, "s'il vous plaît, let Fleur down. She says very stupid zings, but she is very sad."

We don't need more grief today. It's Bill's day and I won't see it tainted by murder. I refrained – Charlie can too. I put my hand on his, following Snape's example, and slowly, gently guide it towards the ground. He releases Fleur, who slumps backwards against one of the black-clad guests. She's conscious, but only just. More importantly, she doesn't say anything.

"Come, Peace," I whisper, "we have somewhere else to be." Anywhere else.

x

We (Charlie and I) take Ron, Ginny and Hermione back to Hogwarts. Snape accompanies us to the grand staircase and then runs off to hide in the dungeons. It must have been too much excitement for him today and he undoubtedly has some potion for Poppy, Remus or his own amusement to brew.

Ginny and Ron, neither of which slept a wink last night, are out cold as soon as they hit their beds, and Charlie sets up Silencing Spells so that they wouldn't be awoken by their room-mates sooner than necessary. Hermione hugs me and repeats over and over how sorry she is for getting mad at me. I tell her five times that it's all forgiven and forgotten and send her off to get some sleep, too, if possible. She takes a book into the bed, so I doubt it's going to happen.

Once they are sorted out – as much as we are capable of sorting them out – I walk Charlie out of the castle. Students flee from the Entrance Hall as we enter it; we cross it in summer-like silence, my heels echoed by other, much quieter set of footsteps.

I, with minor surprise, realise that he is now the Heir, though I doubt he'll hold the position for long. Percy has already refused it by refusing his family (moreover, he's 'missing'), Fred and George are not exactly made to be heirs of anything, and they would either take the position together, or not at all. That leaves Ron. My once best friend never imagined that he would hold that position one day. It wasn't too probable, sure, what with five older brothers… but Ron deserves it. Maybe this was waiting for him all that long time he felt overlooked.

Charlie stops on the highest step and waits for me to stand by his side. For a while we simply watch the horizon, tacitly coming to terms with the reality of the world remaining the same even without Bill in it. At least for most people – the two of us are going to walk our ways in very different directions.

"Am I going to see you again?" I ask him, letting my wistfulness trickle into the inquiry.

"You might."

"But I'm not likely to," I finish for him, with understanding that surprises me. I search my heart for the reason and find it right next to the reason why I didn't cry when Bill burnt. I have little to mourn for – our paths have intersected, we gave each other little gems to carry in our souls, hopefully for the rests of our lives, but we have to go on and neither of us particularly desires to forcefully twist our futures together. What is mine of Bill I already have and what was not is not mine to mourn. What is mine of Charlie I already have…

"No…" he says plaintively, with a tiny hint of content smile playing around the edges of his mouth, "no, you're not likely to." I wish he was careful, and happy, and lived long and felt a lot of love. He knows that I do and wishes something similar, coloured by his experience and nature, for me.

"Goodbye, Peace. Take good care of yourself."

He turns to me, puts his arms around my hips and lifts me up against himself with ease. He gifts me with one last less than chaste kiss that lingers more on my mind than on my lips and we part; I go back into the castle, he goes free.

x

A/N: That's the end of Metamorphosis at Dawn. If you would like to know what happens to Harry now, go read Pantogogue ;-).

Brynn


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